Stem Cells: Biology, Cancer, and Potential Targets

Call for Papers

Stem cells can self-renew to maintain themselves and can also develop into different cell types to fulfill cellular functions. Thus, stem cells may provide a renewable source of replacement cells to treat diseases related to them. For example, patients may be able to receive needed cells or tissues or have diseased cells or tissues replaced with healthy ones. On the other hand, stem cells can be grown in culture or genetically engineered to generate a specific tissue to replace diseased tissues. Stem cells may also be valuable for understanding the mechanisms by which human diseases develop. Embryonic stem cells (made from embryos) and induced pluripotent stem cells (closely resembling embryonic stem cells and created through genetic reprogramming) can potentially produce any cell or tissue the body needs to repair itself, whereas adult stem cells are specialized to give rise to one or more specific cells or tissues. Moreover, genetic alterations of normal stem cells or their progeny can lead to the generation of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in some cancers. CSCs are thought to be the root of cancer origin, metastasis, and recurrence, and, accordingly, eradicating these cells has been considered as a new promising approach to cure cancer patients.

We invite authors to submit original research and review articles that help to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which stem cells survive, proliferate, and differentiate in both normal and disease situations. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Normal and cancer stem cells
• Stem cell niche
• Stem cell epigenetics
• Stem cells for regenerative medicine
• Targeting of cancer stem cells

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/sci/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/sci/bdt/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Shaoguang Li, Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

Guest Editors

• Rihab Nasr, Department of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Physiological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
• Daniela Krause, Department of Pathology, The Center for Regenerative Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA