Blog post about the complexity of CSC

Complexity of cancer stem cells by Alexey Bersenev, Hematopoiesis, May 6, 2009. [Twitter link to blog post] Final paragraph:

But not everything about CSC is so pessimistic. We know many good examples of successful targeting and eradication in tumors where the CSC model could be applied. We still have a lot of ways, other than surface molecules and signaling pathways, to target them. We are still developing a models to validate the concept. We can see clinical relevance and significance of CSC. Field is developing tremendously right now and a model is in the making.

… debating the existence of CSCs or their frequency is not a particularly useful exercise, and the scientific community would be well served to move beyond these issues. Rather, the more pertinent question is whether studying and targeting CSC is important for developing better forms of therapy. The answer to that query seems somewhat less clear.
Craig Jordan (U of Rochester)

An experiment with Twitter

An experiment by the Editor: I joined Twitter in late December, 2008 (see: Twitter / jimtill). Until now, I've seldom provided updates. However, as an experiment, I plan to post more frequently. The posts will be brief updates about topics of personal interest, including ones relevant to the two blogs that I currently edit (this one, and Be Openly Accessible or Be Obscure, a blog on topics related to the Open Access movement). The individual updates will involve no more than 140 characters (because that's the maximum allowed by Twitter), but related updates can be posted sequentially. My initial goal: to increase the number of "followers" of my Twitter page (and especially, to add "followers" who find the updates to be a useful adjunct to one or the other of the two blogs that I edit). The RSS feed url of updates to my Twitter page is: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/18376303.rss