UK Scientist Reveal Cancer's Dark Darwinian Secret

15 December 2010 – A new study has shed light on the reason why advanced cancers are notoriously resistant to treatment.

Cancer stem cells have been widely regarded as the ‘bull’s eye’ for drugs to target, but research by the ICR and the University of Oxford has found they are actually a diverse group of cells with different combinations of mutations, even within individual patients.

This suggests that there is no single bull’s eye but rather multiple targets that are constantly shifting.

Using childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia cells as a model, Professor Mel Greaves from the ICR and colleagues revealed that cancer clones evolve in a Darwinian fashion by ongoing genetic variation and natural selection in the body.

They showed that in the very early stages of the disease the original cancer stem cell produces distinct ‘sub-clones’ of itself. Each of these sub-clones contains different combinations of genetic mutations and will go on to develop further sub-clones independently of each other, like branches.

While some sub-clones will be destroyed by drugs, other branches may be resistant to treatment and become dominant, driving the cancer forward.