I’m certainly no doctor, but I still get a little excited when I hear about potential medical breakthroughs from cutting-edge research.
Our sponsor, UHealth, is a leader in that kind of research. One of their best, Dr. Tan A. Ince, M.D., Ph.D., came on the show recently to share a few highlights from his investigation into the behavior of breast cancer.
Ince, associate professor of pathology and member of UHealth’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, has received a $250,000 grant from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation to research personalized breast cancer treatment with multi-hormone combinations.
But first, a story: Some 15 years ago, Ince invented a technology that allows doctors to keep human cells alive in a petri dish indefinitely. This allows all sorts of experiments without testing things on the patient.
Fast-forward to four years ago, and Ince is recruited to the UHealth Stem Cell Institute, bringing his technology with him. Since his arrival, researchers have discovered they can apply these methods to leukemia, bladder cancer, colon cancer and possibly all cancers.
Working with adult tumor stem cells, the doctors have discovered that these cancer cells behave much like the queen bee of a bee hive, Ince said. A queen bee can regenerate the whole colony even if you kill all of the bees.
“We envision the tumor stem cells using a similar analogy. They are rare cells, but they are capable to regenerating the entire tumor,” he said.
When tumor stem cells metastasize, it’s likely another “queen bee” has been created to form another colony somewhere else in the body, he said, so researchers are working to target the tumor stem cells.
It’s fascinating stuff that will hopefully make breast cancer, and perhaps all cancer, a thing of the past. You can read more about Ince’s work – and support it financially – at the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
Click here to listen to the full interview with Dr. Tan A. Ince of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.