Tracking Leukemia's Starting Point

sumsung submitted, created time 11 months 2 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Like all cancers, childhood leukemia starts silently, and how it begins is a perennial puzzle. Some leukemias have been tied to cancer "stem cells" that may drive the early stages of illness and possibly induce relapses. Now researchers in the U.K., Italy, and Japan say they've discovered a stem cell for the most common form of childhood leukemia. Helping them were twin girls, one of whom has the disease and one of whom is healthy.

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Twins, one with leukemia, illustrate cancer stem cell hypothesis

Darkfrog submitted, created time 11 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

Cancer stem cell hypothesis is the idea that some cancers, including leukemia, are caused by a small number of cancer stem cells. Even if the majority of the tumor is removed of zapped with chemo, the cancer will recur unless the cancer stem cells are dispatched.

The twin girls in this study are fraternal, not identical, and one of them has leukemia and the other does not. However, a group of cells in the healthy girl, Isabella, seemed to match the ill girl, Olivia, implying that they were transferred to her while the two of them were developing. Some of these cells were removed

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