A Cure for Cancer?

The lead article in today’s New York Times is titled, “Finding on Drugs May Help Fight Against Cancer.” It involves a new breakthrough on isolating and trapping cancer stem cells so they can be tested with a variety of medications. The discovery was made by a group affiliated with Harvard-M.I.T. genomics research.

After its achievement, the group tested the isolated cancer stem cells with 16,000 chemicals, including those used in standard chemotherapy, and found 32 that went after cancer stem cells selectively. 31 of these 32 chemicals had never been used in any form of cancer therapy before.

I guess most people dream about opening the paper one day and reading a headline that says “cancer cured.” I know a lot of progress has been made to fight specific types of cancer, such as breast cancer and lung cancer, and that’s why these generic treatments that go right to the root of the disease are so encouraging.

According to the article, however, we should temper our optimism. The scientific camp is split about the importance of stem cancer cells versus cancer cells, especially whether you can just treat the stem cells while ignoring the regular ones. Some also think that, unlike other mature cells, mature cancer cells can revert back to the stem form.

Personally, I’m an optimist. I’ve also read about other targeted approaches based on a person’s individual genome. The importance of these breakthroughs is their progress in our continuing fight to eliminate the scourge of cancer from mankind. This fight may seem slow and incremental, but the forward movement has been sustained for many years.