Breakthrough Brings Hope for Leukemia Treatment
January 19th, 2008 | by askadmin |From The Medi Lexicon
Scientists from The Institute of Cancer Research together with colleagues at The University of Oxford and Great Ormond Street Hospital, funded by Leukaemia Research and the Medical Research Council (MRC), have compared cells in the blood of three-year-old identical twins Olivia, who is being treated for leukaemia, and Isabella who is healthy. They found that both twins had the same genetically abnormal primitive cells in their blood. These ‘pre-leukaemic’ stem cells reside in the bone marrow and either ‘lay dormant’ or go on to develop into full-blown leukaemia stem cells.