Therapeutics formulated to target cancer stem cells: Is it in our future?

With the political, social and financial drives for cancer research, many advances have been made in the treatment of many different cancer types. For example, given the increase in awareness, early detection, and treatment of breast and prostate cancers, we have seen substantial increases in survival rates. Unfortunately there are some realms of cancer that have not seen these substantial advancements, largely due to their rapid progression and the inability to specifically target therapy.

The hypothesis that cancers arise from a small population of cells, called cancer stem cells (CSCs), is gaining more popularity amongst researchers. There are, however, still many skeptics who bring into question the validity of this theory. Many skeptics believe that there is not a specific subset of cells that originate with these characteristics, but that they develop certain features over time making them more resistant to conventional therapy. It is theorized that many of the relapses occurring after remission are due to our inability to destroy the self-renewing CSCs. This central idea, that CSCs are biologically different from all other cancer cells, has directed research towards the development of therapy to target CSCs directly. The major dilemma in targeting therapy in myeloproliferative disorders, malignancies of the central nervous system or malignancies in general, is the inability to target CSCs as opposed to normal stem cells. However, with the recent advances in the identifications of unique molecular signatures for CSCs along with ongoing clinical trials targeting CSCs, it is possible to use targeted nanotechnology-based strategies in the management of different types of cancers.