Harvard/MIT team finds that killing cancer cells by disrupting their metabolism doesn’t harm normal cells

A study comparing how blood stem cells and leukemia cells consume nutrients found that cancer cells are far less tolerant to shifts in their...

A bone drug already on the market for osteoporosis may kill chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) stem cells thought to persist in the bone marrow after standard therapy, lowering the likelihood of disease recurrence, according to a new study in mice led by researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, and Massachusetts General Hospital.... Read more about Bone drug kills resistant cancer stem cells by making home unlivable

HSCI Co-Director David Scadden, MD, and Affiliated Faculty member Xi He, PhD, have each won two-year, half-million dollar competitive grants – and industry sponsorship, from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC), which oversees the state’s $1 billion Life Sciences Initiative.

The two HSCI scientists were two of the four finalist groups in the third round of MLSC’s Cooperative...

The general theory of cancer development holds that malignancies occur because of the presence of certain genetic elements within the affected cells.

But a new study by Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) indicates that “good” cells can become cancerous because of exposure to a “bad” environment within the body — similarly to the way a “good boy” may turn to crime when exposed to the pressures of life in a crime-ridden neighborhood.

In their paper in today’s edition of the journal Nature, David T. Scadden and colleagues report that normal blood stem...