Cancer cells and stem cells share same origin

In a collaborative study, researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), and the Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) in California and Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in New York have successfully converted human skin cells into brain cells by suppressing the expression of p53, a protein encoded by a widely studied oncogene. This suggests that p53 mutation helps determine cell fate -- good or bad -- rather than only the outcome of cancer.

Oncogenes are generally thought to be genes that, when mutated, change healthy cells into cancerous tumor cells.

Study findings were appearing Monday on the website of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

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