Zeitschrift für Stammzellforschung und -therapie

Abstrakt

Human Adult Stem Cells as the Target Cells for the Initiation of Carcinogenesis and for the Generation of Cancer Stem Cells

James E. Trosko*

The inference to stem cells has been found in ancient myths and the concept of stem cells has existed in the fields of
plant biology, developmental biology and embryology for decades. In the field of cancer research, the stem cell theory
was one of the earliest hypotheses on the origin of a cancer from a single cell. However, an opposing hypothesis
had it that an adult differentiated somatic cell could "de-differentiate" to become a cancer cell. Only within the last
decade, via the "cloning" of Dolly, the sheep, did the field of stem cell biology really trigger an exciting revolution in
biological research. The isolation of human embryonic stem cells has created a true revolution in the life sciences
that has led to the hope that these human stem cells could lead to basic science understanding of gene regulation
during differentiation and development, stem cell therapy, gene therapy via stem cells, the use of stem cells for drug
discovery, screening for toxic effects of chemicals, and understand the aging and diseases of aging processes.