One of the focal points of the collaboration's efforts willbe cancer stem cells, which are also a key focus of Actium's. Findlayidentifies cancer stem cells, also known as tumor-initiating cells, as one ofthe key targets in the treatment of cancer. Like normal stem cells, cancer stemcells can renew themselves and differentiate into multiple cells types. Theissue, Findlay notes, is that these cancer stem cells often prove to be moreresistant to existing cancer therapies, and while current treatments might killthe 'bulk' tumor cells, the survival of cancer stem cells allows for tumorrelapse.
"If you can target those cancer stem cells and either turnthem into your common, garden, bulk tumor cells, they will eventually die oftheir own accord, or they will respond to conventional chemotherapy orradiation," she explains. "If you cannot target the cancer stem cells … theyare probably the ones that make the metastases or the relapse of disease andultimately are probably a big part of the reason why we're not seeing quantumleaps in being able to cure cancer and having people living much longer."
"There are some areas of medicine where we've done very wellin terms of treatment, but there's other areas where I think that there will besome real benefits coming out of being able to use stem cells to screen fordrug therapies or use stem cells as materials that would promote tissueregeneration and healing," says Findlay of the potential of stem cell-basedtreatments. "I think that there's some real opportunities to really improvepeople's quality of life and health using these new innovations."
