BioCentury
ARTICLE | Cover Story

Tracing cancer stem cells

August 16, 2012 7:00 AM UTC

Three academic teams have independently developed techniques for in vivo detection of cancer stem cells in mouse solid tumors.1-3 The methods could be useful as next-generation target discovery platforms and as screens for compounds that hit cancer stem cells.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) in solid tumors were first identified in 2003 when researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School identified them in a mouse xenograft model of human breast cancer.4 The group's method relied on transplanting human tumor cells into immunodeficient animals-a biological context that is dramatically different from the cells' tumor niche in humans...