Apr 02 (Japan Times) - A team of Japanese research institutes wants to hunt down the stem cells of human cancers by employing an ultra-precise observation sensor technology used in the Hitomi astronomy satellite.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the University of Tokyo’s Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) will produce a prototype detector by 2020 and test it on mice.
Researchers think the stem cells of cancers are strong enough to survive the surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments used to eliminate cancer cells and later proliferate, causing cancer to re-emerge and metastasize.
To fully eliminate cancer, it is necessary to precisely grasp where its stem cells exist in the human body and their amounts.