Give some info about cancer gene therapy?

This is a fascinating areaa of research but at this time it is largely a research tool and I do not expect such treatment to be widely available - and even then it will be for a few cancers - for a decade or longer. The notion is to 'target' the cancer cells specifically. There is also an interest in preventing cells from undergoing malignant change. Again - although exciting this is more of a future hope than a present reality.

The following is an article that is just out today:

Current therapies treat all cancer cells the same. They're aimed at shrinking tumours on the basis that the various cells within them all have similar powers to spawn new cancers and spread destruction.

But mounting evidence suggests that cancer's real culprits -- the roots of perhaps every tumour -- are actually a small subset of bad seeds known best to the world as stem cells.

Stem cells are primal cells that retain the ability to renew themselves through cell division and can differentiate into a wide range of specialized cell types.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell

Abnormal stem cells have now been identified as the engines driving certain cancers of the blood, breast, brain, bone and prostate. And today, two research groups -- one in Canada and another in Italy -- report in an advance online publication of the journal Nature that they have pinpointed aberrant stem cells as the source of colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths.

Posted AT 3:47 AM EST ON 20/11/06

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