STANFORD, Calif., Oct 11, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Researchers at Stanford University in California suggest cancer cells might be reformed, which could lead to new cancer treatments.

Dr. Dean Felsher, assistant professor of medicine and pathology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said conventional wisdom says cancer cells contain so many mutations there's no way to return them to normal, so cancer treatments focus on destroying or removing the cancerous cells.

However, Felsher found turning off just one cancer-causing gene is enough to eliminate aggressive, incurable liver tumors in mice in just four weeks.

Felsher says he hopes his work will result in drugs specifically hamstring the protein in question, Myc, which is one of the most common mutations in cancer cells.

The study appears in the current online issue of Nature.

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