Review in special issue of Chemical Reviews

Cancer Stem Cells: A New Theory Regarding a Timeless Disease by Bedabrata Sarkar, Joseph Dosch and Diane M Simeone, Chem Rev 2009(Jul); 109(7): 3200-8.[PubMed Citation]. Excerpt from the full text of this review:

5 Conclusions

The discovery of CSCs in several types of solid tumors over the past few years represents a major paradigm shift in the field of oncology and is likely to change our understanding of the process of tumorigenesis. The existence of cancer stem cells also has direct therapeutic implications. Most current systemic therapies have been found ineffective in the treatment of solid tumors, and this may be due, at least in part, to increased resistance of the cancer stem cells. Selective pressure provided by treatment of the tumor with chemotherapy or ionizing radiation may allow for the survival and enrichment of a resistant CSC population, with subsequent reconstitution of the primary tumor with cells that will not be responsive to further treatment cycles. It will be important to understand how cancer stem cells are different from the rest of the tumor cell population in order to develop effective targeted therapeutics to this resistant cancer cell population, with the goal of improvement in patient outcomes.

This article is part of the 2009 Cancer Chemotherapeutics special issue of Chemical Reviews.

More on immune based therapies for the treatment of cancers

ImmunoCellular Therapeutics Retains Services of Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies and Renowned Immunologist to Evaluate Lead Product Candidate, Business Wire, July 14, 2009. Excerpts:

ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, Ltd. (OTCBB: IMUC), a clinical-stage biotechnology company that is developing immune based therapies for the treatment of brain and other cancers, announced today that it has retained the services of the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies in San Diego, CA, to evaluate the immunogenicity of peptides to target cancer stem cells (CSC’s) relating to the Company’s lead product candidate ICT-121. The evaluation will be conducted by Dr. Clemencia Pinilla, a specialist in immune response mechanisms and their role in the prevention and cause of human disease with over 100 publications and multiple patents to her credit.

.....

ICT-121 is IMUC’s cancer stem cell (CSC) vaccine product candidate that consists of a peptide to stimulate a cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) response to CD133, which is generally overexpressed on the CSCs.

Relevant links: Profile of Clemencia Pinilla, of the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies in San Diego, California; and, Opinion: A Stem of Hope for Cancer Treatments by Manish Singh (President and CEO of IMUC), Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, June 12, 2009. [Previous blog post: Bright future for CSC therapies?, June 14, 2009].

Note that it is important that CSC-targeted vaccination "should not lead to immune reaction to normal cells that may express common antigens". For a recent publication from which this quotation is taken, see: Antigen-Specific T Cell Response from Dendritic Cell Vaccination Using Cancer Stem-like Cell-Associated Antigens by Qijin Xu and 8 co-authors, including John S Yu, Stem Cells 2009(Apr 23) [Epub ahead of print][PubMed Citation]. (John S Yu is Chief Scientific Officer and Chairman of the Board of IMUC, see: Our Team - IMUC).

For some background about immune based therapies for the treatment of cancer, see: Cancer Vaccines by Preeti Gokal Kochar, ProQuest Discovery Guide, January 2006.

See also: Connotea bookmarks matching tag CD133.