US scientists manage to create cancer cells

NEW DELHI, JULY 29: In a landmark discovery, scientists have been able to create human cancer cells in a test tube, taking us that much c...

NEW DELHI, JULY 29: In a landmark discovery, scientists have been able to create human cancer cells in a test tube, taking us that much closer to understanding cancer. As the saying goes: 8220;If you can create a problem you are also that much nearer to solving it.8221;

American scientists working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT, Boston, have been able to transform normal human cells into cancerous cells by manipulating a few genes and some biochemical pathways.

To become cancerous, cells accumulate genetic mutations that eventually result in their catastrophic ability to keep dividing without end.

For some time, researchers have been able to make mouse cells tumorigenic by introducing a few known genes. However, human cells have proved to be stubborn and no simple manipulations of the cells have been identified that cause the desired effect.

Now after 15 years of hard work, this team of scientists claim that they have been able to immortalize human cells for the first time in the world.

Throwing light on this very hot finding, Amitabha Mukhopadhyay, a cancer researcher at the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi says 8220;once the causative factor is known then the remedy is obviously that much closer.8221;

Robert Weinberg of MIT and his colleagues report in the latest issue of the leading British journal Nature that the expression of just three specific proteins in human cells is sufficient to make them cancerous.

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The results offer insight into the minimum number of molecular changes required for a human cell to become cancerous, and shed light on the specific intra-cellular signalling pathways that must be disrupted for a cell to reach the tumorigenic state.

One of the three proteins the researchers chose to introduce into the human cells is the enzyme telomerase, which is involved in maintaining the ends of chromosomes. This success with human cells, therefore, highlights the particular importance of a functional telomerase for human cells to become tumorigenic, although it is clearly not the only molecular pathway that must be perturbed.

While most scientists are hailing this American discovery as a watershed in our understanding the basic biology of cancer, other scientists warn that the fight against cancer could still be a long-drawn battle for they say 8220;transforming cells in glass plates is all very well but, in the human body, cancer relies on the tumor8217;s ability to evade the immune system, to attract its own blood vessels and to spread around the body.8221;

So although attempts to create human tumour cells have now been brought to an end, the challenge to integrate knowledge from artificial transformation models with an understanding of complex, multi-step tumour formation in vivo is far from over.