Page 36 - Annual Report 2020

Rebecca Morris, Ph.D.
Stem Cells and Cancer
SECTION LEADER /
I.J. HOLTON PROFESSOR
“Stem cells are only as pure as the next selectable marker.
With microscopy, we visualize cancer happening by
determining how stem cells behave, how they move around the body, and how they develop into tumors. Science is a really great way to know things, but with a microscope, we can
actually see them.”
Rebecca Morris
Stephanie Holtorf
Non-melanoma skin cancers such as basal cell is directly relevant to the etiology of skin cancer, as
and squamous cell carcinomas occur more
frequently in the human population than any other type of malignancy, and more than one million new cases are diagnosed in the United States annu- ally. It is estimated that one-third to one-half of all human cancers originate in the skin; that skin cancers exceed all others combined; and that the lifetime risk for development of skin cancer in the US population is one in five. Solar ultra-violet radiation is the major known cause of non-melanoma skin cancers and
demonstrated by both epidemiological evidence and the tight correlation between non-melanoma skin can- cer development in humans and ultra-violet radiation- induced skin carcinogenesis in experimental models.
Skin cancers as seen in the clinic are actually the results of a long history of which only the later stages are easily observed. The progression from normal maintenance of the skin to neoplastic growth involves multiple changes in cellular phenotypes
and patterns of gene expression.
SUMMARY
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