Does stem cell research cover cancer?

Answer 1

In any cancer tumor, there are what's called 'cancer stem cells'. These cancer stem cells behave like stem cells in that they are usually quiescent but when the tumor is destroyed by for example radiation therapy and chemotherapy, which targets dividing cells, the tumor stem cells can survive these treatments and begin to divide and recreate the tumor after the treatment has ceased. Right now there are no effective treatment except for surgery that can selectively target cancer stem cells and this is the cause of high recurrence rates in certain cancers. There are also studies that show that directly injecting neural stem cells into brains with neural tumors can directly reduce the size of the tumor without harming surrounding cells. This makes stem cells sound like the 'silver bullet' for neural tumors however much more research needs to be done before this effect can be understood enough for human usage or usage for other organs.