Scientists find drug to kill cancer 'mother' stem cells

Published on Thursday 13 August 2009 19:07

SCIENTISTS have made a significant breakthrough in the fight against cancer after finding a way to target the deadly "mother" cells that give birth to tumours.

For the first time, scientists have identified a drug that selectively kills cancer stem cells.

Many solid tumour cancers, including breast, prostate, bowel and lung, are thought to be driven and renewed by stem cell "parents".

Cancer stem cells are elusive, highly aggressive, and hard to defeat. And scientists believe tackling tumour stem cells could eradicate a cancer's source.

Cancer stem cells have always proved highly resistant to therapy agents, which is why tumours often grow back after initial treatment.

But now scientists in the US have found a compound that delivers a targeted knockout blow to breast cancer stem cells.

Tested in the laboratory, the drug salinomycin was 100 times more effective at destroying the stem cells than the powerful chemotherapy agent Taxol.

Injected into mice with breast cancer, salinomycin also slowed the growth of the animal's tumours. Stem cells treated with the drug were less able to seed new tumours in the mice than cells treated with Taxol.

It may be the best part of a decade before such compounds are ready to be used on humans. However, they have the potential to revolutionise the way cancer is tackled, the researchers believe.

One possibility is using the new drugs in combination with standard therapies to mop up cancer stem cells left behind by traditional treatment.

Dr Piyush Gupta, from the Broad Institute in Boston and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: "It wasn't clear it would be possible to find compounds that selectively kill cancer stem cells. We've shown it can be done."