Cancer Stem Cell Research

Cancer stem cells are the small number of cells within a tumor that drive the tumor's
growth. These cells generally make up just 1% to 3% of all cells in a tumor.
At the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center, we believe treatments designed to target and
destroy cancer stem cells will revolutionize how we treat cancer. Over the last 30 years,
researchers have developed more effective treatments for cancers like childhood leukemia,
Hodgkin's disease and testicular cancer.
Death rates for some common cancers, like breast and prostate cancer, have gone down
due to advances in early detection and prevention. However, the survival rate for patients with
many advanced cancers has not changed significantly for decades, and cancer is still the secondmost common cause of death in the United States.
Instead of trying to kill all the cells in a tumor with chemotherapy or radiation, we
believe it would be more effective to use treatments targeted directly at these so-called cancer
stem cells. If the stem cells were eliminated, the cancer would be unable to grow and spread to
other locations in the body.
Commitment to Cancer Stem Cell Research: The U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center
is one of only a few research institutions in the United States and Canada that has made an
institutional commitment to cancer stem cell research. Organized teams of U-M scientists are
studying cancer stem cells in many different types of cancer: Adrenal, breast, colon, head and
neck, leukemia, lung, melanoma, myeloma, pancreatic, prostate, thyroid cancers. By working
together and sharing information, Cancer Center scientists hope to make progress more rapidly
than would be possible for individual scientists working alone. We believe new treatments
designed to target and destroy cancer stem cells could revolutionize the way physicians treat
cancer. Our goal is to be the world's leader in research on cancer stem cells and in the
development of new stem cell-based therapies for cancer patients.
Every organ and type of tissue in the body contains a small number of what scientists call
"adult" or "tissue" stem cells. Since most cells in the body live for just a short time, the body
needs to keep making new cells to replace them. Adult stem cells ensure a continuous supply of
new cells to replace old cells that wear out or are destroyed.
Stem cells have properties that make them different from ordinary cells. (1) They
divide; Stem cells can divide to make exact copies of themselves - a property scientists call selfrenewal.. (2) They differentiate .Stem cells can differentiate to make specialized cells called
progenitor cells that go on to form the organs and tissues in the human body. (3) They duplicate:
Every time a stem cell divides, it makes one exact copy and one progenitor cell. When the
progenitor cell divides, it produces two cells that are somewhat more specialized. Each
generation of new cells is more specialized than the previous generation until, eventually, mature

cells are produced. (4) They divide indefinitely ; Many cells can divide to make copies of
themselves, but they can only divide a certain number of times before they die. Stem cells can
keep dividing indefinitely. Because stem cells are essentially immortal, the body keeps them
under tight control, so they will divide only when a new supply of cells is needed.
What types of stem cells were discovered at the U-M Cancer Center?
In 2003, U-M scientists were the first in the world to identify cancer stem cells in a solid
tumor, finding them in breast tumors. Since then, other Cancer Center scientists have discovered
and isolated cancer stem cells in pancreatic cancer (2007), in head and neck cancer (2007) and in
an aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma (2009).
Even under a microscope, there's no way to distinguish cancer stem cells from other
malignant cells just by looking at them. To identify stem cells, scientists use specialized
equipment to detect specific proteins on the cell's surface. These proteins are not found on
regular cancer cells. A biochemical assay developed at the U-M Cancer Center can identify
breast cancer stem cells.
The ultimate test to prove that cells are true cancer stem cells is to inject cells from a
human tumor into mice that are genetically engineered to lack a cancer-fighting immune system.
If the mouse does not get cancer, scientists know the injected cells were not stem cells, because
ordinary tumor cells will divide a few times and then die. But if the mouse develops a tumor with
the same types of cells as the human tumor, scientists know that the injected cells were true
cancer stem cells.
Research on cancer stem cells will change everything about how doctors diagnose,
prevent and treat cancer. Will the discovery of cancer stem cells change how doctors treat
cancer?. By analyzing the genes that are active in a patient's cancer stem cells and counting the
number of stem cells in a tumor, physicians could identify patients at high risk for advanced,
aggressive disease.
New therapies designed to target stem cells could eliminate cancer without the risks and
side effects of current treatments that also destroy healthy cells in the body. Destroying cancer
stem cells in the original tumor could reduce the risk of deadly metastasis, where malignant cells
move from the primary tumor to other places in the body. Finally, by killing the cells driving the
tumor's growth, treatments targeted at cancer stem cells could eliminate recurrences of the
disease.
Why doesn't chemotherapy and radiation kill cancer stem cells? . Scientists don't know
for sure. Since chemotherapy and radiation kill cells that divide often, stem cells may be less
vulnerable because they rarely divide. Some scientists believe cancer stem cells may have
genetic mutations that make them resistant to damage from chemotherapy or radiation, or cancer
stem cells may be able to repair DNA damage more rapidly than normal cells.