Raman Laboratory

Two main issues confound the treatment of basal-like breast cancers, as well as other carcinomas. Firstly, most deaths from carcinomas (~90%) result from metastatic spread of the disease to distant sites rather than from the primary tumors. Secondly, the development of therapeutic resistance to initially treated tumors results in the relapse of cancers into more aggressive forms. Both of these properties of aggressive carcinomas can be traced to intrinsic intratumoral heterogeneity, which can arise through various mechanisms, prominent among these being the presence of subpopulations of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in carcinomas. Several lines of evidence indicate that these cells are intrinsically more resistant to many forms of conventional therapy and, at the same time, capable of regenerating tumor regrowth following cessation of therapy.

Learn more...