by Benjamin S. Youn, Arindom Sen, PhD, Ian Clarke, PhD, Peter B. Dirks, MD, PhD, Mark Basik, MD, and Leo A. Behie, PhD
Volume 6, Issue 2 (Summer 2007)
The recent discovery of cancer stem cells in leukemia, brain cancer, and breast cancer has had a significant impact on cancer research and how cancers are thought to arise. Their discovery has resulted in unique, but pressing challenges that may ultimately only be resolved through the development of large-scale bioprocesses. The scarcity of these cells is currently impeding discovery of new cancer treatments that specifically aim to eradicate the population of tumour cells thought to be responsible for tumour growth and metastasis. Fundamental bioprocessing principles have been applied to develop scalable, large-scale cultures for cancer stem cells, to address this issue of cancer stem cell scarcity. Development of such bioprocesses differs significantly from other, more conventional cultures since it is the cells themselves that are of interest rather than the products of the cells (e.g., proteins)…
Citation:
Youn BS, Sen A, Clarke I, Dirks PB, Basik M, Behie LA. Bioprocessing of Cancer Stem Cells. BioProcess J, 2007; 6(2): 21-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.12665/J62.Behie