Actually and intentionally creating cancer cells sounds like an odd proposition to me, but that's what is being done by Harvard medical scientists. Why? Well, they are trying to initiate tumors -- breast cancer stem cells to be exact -- in mice to determine how to detect cancer stem cells early and effectively.

With cancer stem cells being very rare, knowing about them very early and with precision would be quite a boon to the breast cancer testing field. Outside of petri dish experiments, researching cancerous stem cells inside mammals has been a very unexplored area of oncology -- until now.

If fat cells from humans could be re-purposed into "suicide" cells that would search and destroy tumors inside the human body, it would probably be a watershed moment in cancer research.

It's just the latest suggestion from gene therapy supporters who see engineering at the molecular and DNA level as the way cancer may be ultimately defeated.

It's exciting to see that developments at the gene level be researched and experiments be suggested. Tumors that now evade detection by traditional tests could be possibly obliterated by nanotechnology robots or engineered cells that go far beyond the capabilities of current biological tests.

Here's hoping the next 20 years see the kind of breakthroughs in cancer treatment that today seem like science fiction.

Cellular antennas don't just allow that that precious mobile phone call, they signal the development of cells in side the human body as well. Scientists are looking more and more at the cilia that inhabit human cells, kind of like the fuzz on a tennis ball.

These cilia are small, hair-like structures (like tiny antennas) that are able to detect signals suggesting (or not suggesting) cell growth.

In fact, cilia signaling is being looked at in reference to its connection to cancer. Scientists are trying to determine what exactly causes the "dismatnling" of these cilia that possibly contributes to rapid cell growth in humans -- many of which end up as cancerous growths.

Breast cancer continues to be a large concern for all women these days. A regular mammogram and consistent self-checks are great initial tools for testing for breast cancer, and more than likely,most women are using them due to the fact breast cancer has seen so much publicity in the last decade. This is a very good thing.

What isn't so good is when cancer cells that form the basis of breast cancer spread into other areas of the body. Using a breast model that contained cells grown outside the body, researchers recently mimicked how breast cancer cells travel outside of the breast with the goal of detection of that kind of activity for possible treatments.

Although this kind of activity could not be witnessed in a real breast, this research may indeed allow cancer specialists to determine how and why breast cancer cells move outside the breast where more cancerous concerns can develop. Anything that advances that cause is quite worthy research in my book.

One of the keys to finding a cure for cancer is to understand how cancer grows and spreads within the body. Angiogenesis is our body's ability to form new blood vessels. This is important and needed for the body to help heal wounds and is also a part of a woman's menstruation each month. Its function in our bodies is a positive thing most of the time.

Angiogenesis also has a role in how cancer cells grow to become tumors. Cancer cells need a blood supply to live and grow. The cancerous tumor actually develops its own blood supply by sending messages to nearby blood vessels. These vessels then have the ability to grow toward the tumor. The tumor then has its own blood vessels to thrive, survive and grow.

This was not taken seriously back in 1961 when Dr. Judith Folkman came up with the theory of angiogenesis. He felt strongly that tumors could not grow bigger than a head of a pin without blood supply. He thought that an entirely new way to treat cancer would be to block this blood vessel growth to the tumor. Decades of work has proven this theory to be correct. What changed a lot of people's minds was an experiment that was done at the end of the 1970's at Dr. Folkman's lab. Tumor cells were put into a rabbit's eye, a place in the eye where there are no blood vessels. Blood vessels did grow toward and into the eye where the cancerous cells lived.

University of Florida Shands Cancer Center researchers have found a weakness in the protective barrier cancer cells maintain to keep from being destroyed. Cancer cells manufacture an enzyme that bonds with a protein, which prevents chemotherapy and radiation from destroying the cancer cells. Researchers have discovered the strength in a cancer cell's ability to survive may be in the Focal adhesion kinase, FAK, a gene produced at high levels in cancerous tumors. This exciting new gene discovery will encourage a great deal of research into drugs to prevent FAK from bonding to the protein necessary in a cancer cell's ability to protect itself from destruction. Normal cells manufacture lower levels of FAK than cancer cells do, and researchers are looking at treatments that will target FAK, while leaving the normal cells unaffected by toxic treatments.