Article Title Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Article Title - Essay Example The article reveals three separate research studies conducted to track the origins of cancer cells in the brain, gut and skin using genetic markers as labels. The studies conducted by Luis Parada and Hans Clevers on brain and gut cancers respectively used genetic labels to mark healthy adult stem cells which had the potential to develop into tumors and analyzed whether the newly formed cancer cells contained the same labels as their predecessors. In the experiment conducted by Parada on glioblastoma, the tumors also contained some unlabelled cells which had also originated from the labeled cells which relapsed following chemotherapy. However, when the labeled cells were targeted using chemotherapy the glioblastoma underwent significant shrinkage. Clevers and his team used drug-inducible genetic markers which when activated caused the cells carrying the marker to fluoresce in one of the four colors. When a second dose of the drug was injected the initially fluorescing cells gave rise to a new set of cells that fluoresced with a different color thus supporting the hypothesis that cancer stem cells give rise to new tumor cells. In the experiment involving the skin tumor conducted by Cedric Blanpain, individual tumor cells were labeled and when tracked these either gave rise to a small cell lineage before diminishing or continued to produce more cells. Thus the study provided a strong experimental evidence for the existence of cancer stem cells and further research involved relating these tracked cells with those of the putative cells which have been found from transplantation studies. The photosynthetic ability of aphids using the carotenoid pigment which they synthesize is explored in the Nature article, â€Å"Photosynthesis-like process found in insects†. Aphids and another possible creature namely the two-spotted