What are CSCs?
Journey at the root of cancer
Journey at the root of cancer
Each organ is made up of a set of cells, which are finely regulated to become a differentiated cell endowed with specific functions. From time to time, some cells mess up and escape to their “normal” destiny, leading to a cellular mass that we called tumor. If this tumor is malignant, we call it cancer. Conventional treatments as well as various novel strategies are used nowadays to fight cancer, including surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or more recently immunotherapy and personalized medicine.
“Cancer Stem Cells set the stages for recurrence”
These treatments remain essential because they drastically reduce the size of the tumors leading to healing for the majority of patients. Unfortunately, reduction DOES NOT always mean cure of cancer. Indeed, at the “heart” of the tumors, there is a subpopulation of cells, most of the time a minority within tumors, which are COMPLETELY refractory to ALL conventional treatments. These cells are called “Cancer Stem Cells” (CSCs). This resistance gives them the strength to spread out and restart a new cancer, either locally (recurrence), or at a distance (metastasis). Metastasis is the consequence of detachment of the CSC from the primary tumor to invade a distant organ. Currently, this phenomenon remains the main cause of death by cancer.
“Recurrence, relapse, metastasis …the cycle repeats on and on”
Fighting CSCs is like fighting cancer at the root since attacking them would prevent recurrences and metastases. Unfortunately, these cells are very clever! They use a set of devices allowing them to escape to all current treatments. It is therefore essential to have a better knowledge of CSCs to establish efficient strategies in order to get rid of them definitively. That’s why, a combination of conventional treatments AND specific treatments that target CSCs would be the BEST strategy to reduce and prevent any recurrences or metastasis. This medico-scientific field is emerging as a new paradigm to treat cancer and constitutes a very promising line of research.
“Destroying CSCs is like pulling out a thistle to the root in order to avoid the formation of an entire thistle field” Pr Daniel Louvard, Member of Academy of Sciences, France
The solid tumor cancer stem cell consortium (Solid TUmor CaNceR Stem cEll network, SUNRise network) aims to promote research on CSCs from solid tumors among researchers, doctors and students. SUNRiSE was created in 2018 by a collective of French researchers and clinicians from Lyon, Montpellier, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, Paris and Rennes.
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