Irradiating brain's stem cell niche

Irradiating brain's stem cell niche doubles survival time for patients with brain cancers by Kim Irwin, News Release, UCLA Newsroom, July 23, 2010. Excerpt:

Patients with deadly glioblastomas who received high doses of radiation that hit a portion of the brain which harbors neural stem cells had double the progression-free survival time as patients who had lower doses or no radiation targeting the area, a study from the radiation oncology department at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found.

The news release is based on this OA publication: Irradiation of the Potential Cancer Stem Cell Niches in the Adult Brain Improves Progression-free Survival of Patients with Malignant Glioma by Patrick Evers and 6 co-authors, including Frank Pajonk, BMC Cancer 2010(Jul 21); 10(1):384. [Epub ahead of print][FriendFeed entry].

Comment: On the brain as a model system to study the impact of radiation dose given to stem cell niches. Provides clinical evidence, based on an improvement in progression-free survival, to support the hypothesis that higher radiation doses to neural stem cell (NSC) niches improves patient survival by eradicating CSCs.

SC-derived gene expression profiles predict poor outcome for AML patients

Leukemic and Normal Stem Cell Transcriptional Signatures Determined by Functional Assays Are Predictive of the Overall Survival of AML Patients by Kolja Eppert and 11 co-authors, including John E Dick, Abstract #389, 51st ASH Annual Meeting, December 7, 2009. Final sentence:

Together these data support the hypothesis that the biological determinants that underlie stemness in both normal and leukemic cells are predictors of poor outcome, and are potential targets for novel therapy.