That Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs) are a popular topic of research among cancer scientists is evident to any one attending cancer-related conferences these days. At this year’s Vanderbilt/Fields Institute" workshop on mathematical oncology":http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/scientific/08-09/mathoncology/summerschool.html, stem cells and CSCs were featured in many of the talks and most of the projects.
A different matter, though, is when CSCs become a hot topic in the non specialised press. This week’s issue of The Economist not only talks about CSCs, they just made the topic their main feature here and here!
This is very interesting but also, given that there is still no consensus in the scientific community on the matter, somewhat risky.
Cancer Stem Cells have been discussed before in this blog (see this and this). The idea behind them is that instead of having a population of tumour cells all dividing rapidly, a tumour is made of a very small population of CSCs that feed the tumour and promote its growth.
The Economist describes the work of various cancer research groups that have shown that some cells are more likely to be able to sustain tumour growth if transplanted, than others. This cells are the ones that have properties comparable to those of stem cells.
Interestingly they mention the research of Dr. Matsui and his team at Johns Hopkins, that found that found that patients that have CSC in their tumours have a lower life expectancy than those who don’t. The implication being that there is a number of tumours in which the presence of CSC is not necessary for the tumour to evolve to be life threatening. At least it would seem that the presence of CSC, although not necessary, worsens the prognosis of the tumour.
According to The Economist, If it is true that a significant number of cancers are the result of CSCs that would have implications for both treatment and research. For treatment since it would take the focus away from therapies that maximise the number of tumour cells killed to other, smarter ones, that target CSCs in particular. From research as it would mean that measurements of tumour cell properties cannot be made in bulk as the proportion of CSCs is always going to be small.
In any case, as pointed out by MIT’s Weinberg in the article, it is still not clear whether CSCs are the ones that originate the tumour or if during tumour progression some cells acquire some of the characteristics of stem cells.
What did you think of the Economist article, though? It is quite brave of a mainstream and succesful media publication to attempt a relatively “hard” biological subject. Did you think they made a reasonable job of it, for the audience of the magazine (mainly business people)?
Hi Maxine,
I think The Economist has done a superb job. The feature article assumes an intelligent reader and explains the topic to some detail without dumbing it down. Of course there are differences with the way a journal such as Science or Nature would report, with less emphasis on what is shown now and more with what the results could mean in the future. Loads of quotations of famous scientists but no references whatsoever to published work. All these is to be expected and does not detract any merit from their effort.
Plus being a feature in The Economist is a great thing for Cancer Stem Cell researchers since the readership is rather influential (not only business people, but politicians and people in position to fund research).
I received my copy of The Economist in my letter box yesterday, and I was thrilled to see what picture was on its cover. Reading it today.
I think David is well pointing out that The Economist writes rather differently from a science journal (though still with a language that makes good sense). But I also think – like David, probably – that The Economist readership prefers to have a fully contained source of information without having to go and hunt for extra references.
Thanks, David and Massimo. I subscribe to the Economist too, so have the article at home to read. In my experience the Economist does a very good job in reporting the scientific and other issues that I know something about. However, I am no expert on this topic and I was not sure from your initial post, David, whether you thought the Economist’s “risky” approach of describing very new experiments and ideas had been successful. I’m very glad to read your answers, and Massimo’s.
At Nature we cover science at this kind of level in our News Features sections. From my relatively regular reading of these two magazines I’d say the levels and approaches are actually pretty similar. I think the Nature news articles are aiming at a similar audience/level to the Economist – in that Nature is mainly read by scientists but, say in this particular case, an astronomer is probably starting out at the same point in trying to follow an article about cancer stem cells as your average business professional who reads the Economist.
Of course, Nature provides more specialist accounts of scientific research as well, further “back” in the magazine: News and Views for a focused account of one advance, and Insights/Reviews/Progress for more rounded accounts of new developments in a field.
It’s always interesting for us Nature editors to know the views of scientists like yourselves who read the scientific coverage in the Economist and in Nature News Features. One of the great benefits of the “online commenting” option on Nature news is that we can hear directly what readers think. However, some of these comments are not that measured ;-), and I have not seen any that compare the Economist and Nature News coverage of the same story! (There could be some, just that I haven’t seen them.)
Massimo and Maxine, seems that The Economist is a very popular magazine among NNers!
I wonder if there’s any cross fertilisation between the staff at Nature N&W and the one at the science section of The Economist.
D
Well, Oliver Morton, Nature’s chief News & Features editor, was there for some time (about 10 years ago). Chris Anderson, now Editor of Wired, was first at Nature and then the Economist. So there’s two bits of xfertilisation!
I read the Economist article today on a flight to a meeting in Warsaw. As a non-biologist I found the economist article well written and an excellent read. Its style is different from a Nature News and Views article, which is to be expected because of different target audiences. However, an important difference is that the economist article is somewhat longer than a Nature N&V. This allows the background to be better developed for a non-specialist to understand the context of the article.