Promising Lead in Cancer Research: Salinomycin Shows Potential to Target Stem Cells
A huge breakthrough has been made in cancer research. Researchers have discovered that a compound called salinomycin killed 100 times more cancer cells than the standard chemotherapy drug.
The study was tested on mice by a team from Boston. Many other experts are hopeful that similar types of treatments could be used to combat other diseases as well.
The findings could essentially pave the wave for a treatment that can target cancer stem cells without harming other body cells. The reason to target cancer stem cells is because it is widely believed that cancer stem cells are the reason why cancer is able to come back even after successful treatments to clear tumors.
Obviously this is a tremendous breakthrough for the entire world. Imagine the possibility that we could develop an anti-cancer drug that would target the cancer, destroy all the stem cells to prevent it from coming back, and all this without harming any other body cells.
Every year there are around 45,000 women and 300 men diagnosed with breast cancer in Britain alone. Imagine all the lives we could save with this sort of information.
Although it will take a few years for researchers to make sure this is safe in humans the potential is definitely there.
This could be the first step towards finding a cure for cancer, soon to be the number 1 cause for death.