HAMILTON, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

A team of scientists at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada have discovered a drug, thioridazine, successfully kills cancer stem cells in the human while avoiding the toxic side-effects of conventional cancer treatments.

"The unusual aspect of our finding is the way this human-ready drug actually kills cancer stem cells; by changing them into cells that are non-cancerous," said Mick Bhatia, the principal investigator for the study and scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute (SCC-RI) in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.

Unlike chemotherapy and radiation, thioridazine appears to have no effect on normal stem cells.

The research, published in the science journal CELL, holds the promise of a new strategy and discovery pipeline for the development of anticancer drugs in the treatment of various cancers. The research team has identified another dozen drugs that have good potential for the same response.

For 15 years, some researchers have believed stem cells are the source of many cancers. In 1997, Canadian researchers first identified cancer stem cells in certain types of leukemia. Cancer stem cells have since been identified in blood, breast, brain, lung, gastrointestinal, prostate and ovarian cancer.

To test more than a dozen different compounds, McMaster researchers pioneered a fully automated robotic system to identify several drugs, including thioridazine.

"Now we can test thousands of compounds, eventually defining a candidate drug that has little effect on normal stem cells but kills the cells that start the tumor," said Bhatia.

The next step is to test thioridazine in clinical trials, focusing on patients with acute myeloid leukemia whose disease has relapsed after chemotherapy. Bhatia wants to find out if the drug can put their cancer into remission, and by targeting the root of the cancer (cancer stem cells) prevent the cancer from coming back. Researchers at McMaster have already designed how these trials would be done.

Bhatia's team found thioridazine works through the dopamine receptor on the surface of the cancer cells in both leukemia and breast cancer patients. This means it may be possible to use it as a biomarker that would allow early detection and treatment of breast cancer and early signs of leukemia progression, he said. The research team's next step is to investigate the effectiveness of the drug in other types of cancer. In addition, the team will explore several drugs identified along with thioridazine. In the future, thousands of other compounds will be analyzed with McMaster robotic stem cell screening system in partnership with collaborations that include academic groups as well as industry.

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Ontario, Canada’s McMaster University Researchers Discover Drug Destroys Human Cancer Stem Cells but Not Healthy Ones

BERKELEY

One of the top suspects behind killer vascular diseases is the victim of mistaken identity, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who used genetic tracing to help hunt down the real culprit.

Zhenyu Tang (seated at microscope) examines vascular stem cells in culture along with Aijun Wang (left) and Song Li. The UC Berkeley researchers say that these newly discovered stem cells contribute to artery-hardening vascular diseases that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. (Photo courtesy of Song Li)

The guilty party is not the smooth muscle cells within blood vessel walls, which for decades was thought to combine with cholesterol and fat that can clog arteries. Blocked vessels can eventually lead to heart attacks and strokes, which account for one in three deaths in the United States.

Instead, a previously unknown type of stem cell a multipotent vascular stem cell is to blame, and it should now be the focus in the search for new treatments, the scientists report in a new study appearing June 6 in the journal Nature Communications.

For the first time, we are showing evidence that vascular diseases are actually a kind of stem cell disease, said principal investigator Song Li, professor of bioengineering and a researcher at the Berkeley Stem Cell Center. This work should revolutionize therapies for vascular diseases because we now know that stem cells rather than smooth muscle cells are the correct therapeutic target.

The finding that a stem cell population contributes to artery-hardening diseases, such as atherosclerosis, provides a promising new direction for future research, the study authors said.

This is groundbreaking and provocative work, as it challenges existing dogma, said Dr. Deepak Srivastava, who directs cardiovascular and stem cell research at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, and who provided some of the mouse vascular tissues used by the researchers. Targeting the vascular stem cells rather than the existing smooth muscle in the vessel wall might be much more effective in treating vascular disease.

It is generally accepted that the buildup of artery-blocking plaque stems from the bodys immune response to vessel damage caused by low-density lipoproteins, the bad cholesterol many people try to eliminate from their diets. Such damage attracts legions of white blood cells and can spur the formation of fibrous scar tissue that accumulates within the vessel, narrowing the blood flow.

Within the walls of blood vessels are smooth muscle cells and newly discovered vascular stem cells. The stem cells are multipotent and are not only able to differentiate into smooth muscle cells, but also into fat, cartilage and bone cells. UC Berkeley researchers provide evidence that the stem cells are contributing to clogged and hardened arteries. (Song Li illustration)

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The real culprit behind hardened arteries? Stem cells, says landmark study

Scientists previously thought heart attacks and strokes were caused by smooth muscle cells Stem cells multiply and caused arteries to harden Heart attacks affect 90,000 and strokes 150,000 in Britain every year

By Emma Reynolds

PUBLISHED: 11:17 EST, 6 June 2012 | UPDATED: 11:17 EST, 6 June 2012

The real culprit behind heart attacks and strokes is stem cells, researchers have claimed in a landmark study that could revolutionise treatment.

Until now, scientists thought vascular health problems were triggered by smooth muscle cells.

Now a team from the University of California in Berkeley have found a previously unknown stem cell, which causes the arteries to harden when it multiplies.

Real hope: The cells can multiply and cause arteries to harden, blocking the blood's route to the heart or brain

The groundbreaking work is set to completely change how heart attacks and strokes are treated, dramatically cutting the number of deaths, according the study published today in the journal Nature Communications.

Heart attacks are the most common reason for people to need emergency treatment. Around 90,000 people in Britain have one each year - of whom around a third will die as a result.

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Stem cells are identified as real culprit behind heart attacks after case of mistaken identity that could ...