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STEM CELLS AND CANCER - SOMETHING STRANGE CAN HAPPEN

Prakash Vaithyanathan Chennai, India - Brain-fu: 6243

12 Octubre 2012  

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 Dr. John Gurdon and Dr.Shinya Yamanaka were awarded the Nobel prize in Medicine for the year 2012 for their discoveries regarding stem cells. Prof.Yamanaka used some recipes to convert a skin cell, otherwise called a specialized cell, to a stem cell which then can be changed to other specialized kind of cells in the body. I have a question here - 

"COULD NATURE BEHAVE IN THIS WAY - IMAGINE A  SPECIALIZED CANCER CELL UNDERGOING CELL DIVISION - INSTEAD OF GIVING TWO DAUGHTER CELLS WHICH ARE COPIES OF THE PARENT CELL - GIVES " 1 DAUGHTER CELL AND 1 STEM CELL" OR "2 DAUGHTER STEM CELLS". 

This is what i refer as asymmetrical cell division. Should this possibility be excluded or is there a basis for such occurence. If this were to happen it has implications for cancer. If cancer cells have mastered this mechanism then they could just convert themselves to cancer stem cells when they undergo division  and so they can never be beaten.

I have written to many scientists around the world - essentially I am trying to give multiple faces to the mitosis phenomenon. It could apply equally well for meiosis too.

Abt myself:

I am Prakash Vaithyanathan, a Middle school science and Math teacher from Chennai
pvaithyanathan@gmail.com

Propiedad Intelectual

Creative Commons Attribution 2.5

Idioma

English

Categoría

Ciencia & Tecnología

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Sugerido para: EVERYONE

Dedicado a: for my students

Tags: cancer stem cells mitosis

 

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por badfaith (Kent, United Kingdom) 12 Octubre 2012

desde: 09/03/2010, Brain-fu: 22115

Can't say I remotely understand this subject, but your idea did make me spend 3 hours searching the internet about Meiosis and Mitosis in order to grasp some of the concepts you describe... only a little wiser after the experience,so it' been educational to say the least. And as I grope vainly in the darkness of ignorance for something intelligent to say regarding your idea, I offer only that I get the sense of a general pessimism on your part that the underlying processes which drives cell division is the strength of cancer cells, and therefore why they are difficult to beat. But since it is a process of division, could it be possible to make the cell divide unequally, with one new cell having all the strength, and one with all the weakness, so the cell puts all it's eggs in one basket so to speak... although you then have a strong cell as a result, the other half are inherently weak, and treatable, so the growth of in terms of size of tumours is curtailed, or managed?
....realise I'm talking a lot of rubbish perhaps, but your idea at last did make me try to think on the subject!
Thanks for posting it.