Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- A drug that can selectively target and kill the stem cells that drive the growth of tumors has been identified for the first time by scientists who searched more than 16,000 compounds to find it.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Broad Institute looked for compounds that could destroy the stem cells, which often resist conventional cancer treatment. One, salinomycin, cut the number of stem cells at least 100 times more than did Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s Taxol, a common chemotherapy medicine, according to a report on the findings published today in the journal Cell.

The researchers will conduct further testing of salinomycin in animals to assess its potential to treat humans, said Piyush Gupta, a researcher at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Broad Institute and co-author of the study. While the outcome of that research is unknown, he said, the work has strengthened a theory that stem cells fuel cancer and may have created a way to find effective drugs.

“We now have a method that researchers anywhere in the world can use to find agents that can kill cancer stem cells and potentially treat cancer,” Gupta said today in a telephone interview.

Stem cells appear to fuel the growth of several kinds of cancer including breast, lung and brain tumors, according to studies done in recent years. The cells are resistant to standard cancer therapy, so finding a way to thwart them is important, said Judy Lieberman, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School who researches cancer stem cells.

‘These Are the Cells’

“These are the cells that are the important cells and if you don’t eliminate them, the tumors can grow back and recur,” Lieberman said today in a telephone interview. “Any way you can figure out to specifically target the cancer stem cells is going to fill an important gap in the therapies we have at hand.”

Lieberman wasn’t involved in the report published today.

Scientists at universities and biotechnology companies including Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Australia’s ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals Ltd. are working to develop treatments to block the stem cells. Findings released in 2007 showed that one marketed anti-cancer drug, GlaxoSmithKline’s Tykerb, reduced the number of cancer stem cells and helped eliminate the disease in some breast cancer patients.

Tumor-Initiating Cells

Research by Jenny Chang at the Baylor College of Medicine has shown that after breast-cancer patients received chemotherapy and hormone treatments, the remaining tumors had a greater percentage of malignancy-initiating cells, the cancer stem cells, than before.

The researchers at MIT and Broad grew cancer cells from breast tumors in a way that increased the number of stem cells. They then used rapid screening techniques to test 16,000 commercially available chemical compounds. They identified 32 candidates before settling on salinomycin as the most potent.

They also tested the compound in mice in two ways. First, they exposed breast cancer stem cells in laboratory dishes to salinomycin and Taxol and tallied how many cells they would need to inject in a mouse to trigger a tumor. It took many more of the salinomycin-treated cells to spur cancer, showing that the compound was inhibiting cancer development, Gupta said.

Second, they induced tumors in mice and treated them with the two drugs. While both drugs exerted “significant anti-tumor effects,” the mice treated with Taxol had a greater proportion of cancer stem cells left in the remaining tumor. Taxol enriched the population of cancer stem cells and salinomycin reduced it, Gupta said.

“We have now a systematic way to look for compounds that selectively kill cancer stem cells,” Gupta said. “We’ve taken a lot of the serendipity out of the equation.”

The research was funded partly by the National Cancer Institute.

__________________

this is Very Good News
hope they can get this shit figured out,,they can send man to the moon but slow on the cures...

__________________

The problem is...Theres no money in the CURE.If we were cured,then we wouldnt need their DRUGS.Its all about the money.

My Mother and Father died from it and now bt Best Friend has Lung Cancer soon he will also.To see people you Love fade away, well there are no words.This has gone on long enough, just how much money do the Drug and insurance companies want before we get help? I pray there is reform.My friend will end -up leaving his wife and family broke because of the costs,you'd think after what Bush did, look if we have enough money to kill 1.5 million people on the other side of the world that did nothing to use then we should be able to afford Health Care !! The lies and killing must stop.It would take so little compared to the costs of war in money and american lives who will take care of the 50,000 amputies coming home from it ?? Who even knows the names of the Americans killed because the news tells us nothing anymore because of the Right-Wing republicans who are scared of what. You better be scared of our on Goverment at this rate.Bush has ruined the USA!!!!!