GEN-ERIC News

Stem cells normally associated with potential cures and treatments can also promote the spread of cancer, scientists have shown. A study found that stem cells taken from bone marrow can drive breast cancer cells to invade other parts of the body. The good news is that the process is reversible, and understanding it may open the door to ways of reducing the metastasis, or spread, of cancer. Stem cells are immature cells not yet assigned a function that can develop into different kinds of tissue. Scientists hope in future they will be used to treat a host of diseases ranging from Parkinson’s to heart failure and type 1 diabetes. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a type of stem cell from the bone marrow that can generate connective tissue, bone, fat, cartilage and muscle. The new research showed that when MSCs are mixed with human breast tumour cells they dramatically increase the potential of the cancer cells to metastasise.