Neural stem cell-based cancer therapy and brain tumor stem cells

The confirmation that neurogenesis occurs in the adult brain and neural stem cells (NSCs) reside in the adult central nervous system (CNS) offers new and promising opportunities to treat a broad range of neurological diseases and injuries, particularly neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Beside this potential, NSCs are being considered for the treatment of brain cancers, and in view of recent developments in stem cell biology that cancer may be a stem cell disease; researchers are revisiting the origin of brain tumors and attempting to isolate and characterize brain tumor stem cells (BTSCs). The existence of BTSCs would have significant consequences for our understanding and the treatment of brain tumors.