Catherine A. O’Brien

TL;DR: The identification of colon cancer stem cells that are distinct from the bulk tumour cells provides strong support for the hierarchical organization of human colon cancer, and their existence suggests that for therapeutic strategies to be effective, they must target the cancer stem Cells.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that low-dose 5-AZA-CdR targets colorectal cancer-initiating cells (CICs) by inducing viral mimicry, and the MDA5/MAVS/IRF7 pathway is highlighted as a potentially druggable target against CICs.

TL;DR: Combining DNA copy number alteration (CNA) profiling, sequencing, and lentiviral lineage tracking, this work followed the repopulation dynamics of 150 single lentivirus-marked lineages from 10 human colorectal cancers through serial xenograft passages in mice, showing that clones remained stable upon serial transplantation and Chemotherapy promoted the dominance of previously minor or dormant lineages.

TL;DR: An immunoprecipitation-based protocol is developed to analyse DNA methylation in small quantities of circulating cell-free DNA, and can detect and classify cancers in plasma samples from several tumour types.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that tumor formation and, more specifically, human colorectal CIC function are dependent on the canonical self-renewal regulator BMI-1.