Comments(2)

question

brian jennings   (01 May 2007)  none

I am a senior in High School taking an AP Bio course, and we just learned a little about cancer cells. If they are so similar to stem cells in that they are pluripotent then would it be possible that they could be used for stem cell research and possibly treatment for damaged cells, like the research that is being done with embryonic stem cells?

thanks

Competing interests

None declared

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Mismatch repair deficiencies transforming stem cells into cancer stem cells and therapeutic implications

Minal Vaish   (20 May 2007)  Department of Biochemistry, University of Lucknow – 226007, U.P., India

Thanks for the interest. Although cancer stem cells gain self renewal capacity but they accumulate many harmful mutations and lose the property of differentiation as embryonic stem cells have and therefore, they can not replace embryonic stem cells for the treatment of damaged cells.

Competing interests

no competing interest.

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