The fight against cancer is not won in a single battle: Long after a cancer has been beaten into remission, it can return.

A group of researchers from McMaster University have found a new drug that can kill cancer stem cells in humans while avoiding the toxic side effects of other traditional cancer treatments.

Breast cancer stem cells wear a cell surface protein that is part nametag and part bull's eye, identifying them as potent tumor-generating cells and flagging their vulnerability to a drug.

A study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers suggests that specific populations of tumor cells have different roles in the process by which tumors make new copies of themselves and grow.

Researchers found that administering a common chemotherapy drug before bone tumors took root actually fertilized the bone marrow, enabling cancer cells, once introduced, to seed and grow more easily.