News and Views


Nature Medicine 14, 494 - 495 (2008)
doi:10.1038/nm0508-494

Bedside to bench: Interfering with leukemic stem cells

Daniela S Krause1 & Richard A Van Etten1

  1. Daniela S. Krause is at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Pathology, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.
  2. Richard A. Van Etten is at the Molecular Oncology Research Institute and Division of Hematology/Oncology, Tufts Medical Center, 800 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02111, USA.
    e-mail: rvanetten@tuftsmedicalcenter.org


Kinase inhibitors such as imatinib (Gleevec) have improved the outlook for many people with chronic myeloid leukemia and related blood disorders. But such drugs do not target the leukemia stem cell population and may not be curative. Krause and Van Etten discuss several clinical studies that suggest that interferon-alpha may provide a solution by selectively eliminating leukemic stem cells—although only more basic research will tell us whether this is true and how it may happen.

Top



Extra navigation

Subscribe to Nature Medicine

Subscribe

Open Innovation Challenges

naturejobs

ADVERTISEMENT