Nano Biosensors for the Detection of Cancer Stem Cells

The Cancer Stem Cell Working Group (CSCWG) is an informal circle of OIST researchers and students with a shared interest in cancer stem cells and relevant associated topics: cancer heterogeneity, treatment resistance, metastasis, development of new therapies and technological challenges. CSCWG members meet every two weeks to present new data, discuss about new ideas, papers, protocols that might be of interest for CSC research.

Next meeting will be held on March 8 and is open to any OIST researcher or student:

Speaker:
Nikhil Bhalla (Shen Unit)
 
Title:
Nano biosensors for the detection of CSCs

Abstract:
It has been demonstrated that localized tumors in clinically apparent metastasis give rise to circulating cancer stem cells. Circulating cancer stem cells may not only be capable of evading from the primary tumor, but also escape from immune surveillance, survive in the circulating blood and subsequently spread the cancer in other distant organs. Thus, circulating cancer stem cells represent a subset of exclusively tumorigenic cancer stem cells characterized by their invasive characteristics and are potential therapeutic targets for preventing disease progression. To date, only a few original reports and reviews have been published focusing on circulating cancer stem cells.  The talk will discusses the potential importance of biosensors in detecting and characterizing these circulating cancer stem cells and also highlight the current technological limitations.