I joined Twitter in late December, 2008 (see: Twitter / jimtill). Until now, I’ve seldom provided updates, and my page currently has only two “followers”. However, as an experiment, I plan to post more frequently. The posts will be brief updates about topics of personal interest, including ones relevant to the two blogs that I currently edit (this one, and Cancer Stem Cell News). The individual updates will involve no more than 140 characters (because that’s the maximum allowed by Twitter), but related updates can be posted sequentially. My initial goal: to increase the number of “followers” of my Twitter page (and especially, to add “followers” who find the updates to be a useful adjunct to one or the other of the two blogs that I edit). The RSS feed url of updates to my Twitter page is: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/18376303.rss
Posts Tagged cancer stem cells
OA reviews about cancer stem cells and melanoma
Two recent reviews about CSC and melanoma are gratis OA. Both were written prior to the recent publication: Efficient tumour formation by single human melanoma cells by Elsa Quintana and 5 co-authors, Nature 2008(Dec 4); 456(7222): 593-8. [Comments about this recent publication have been posted here]. The reviews are:
1) Cancer stem cells: Lessons from melanoma by Caterina La Porta, Stem Cell Rev 2008(Dec 18) [Epub ahead of print][PubMed Citation][Full text].
2) Stem cells, melanoma and cancer stem cells: the good, the bad and the evil? by Farid Menaa and 5 co-authors, including Jörg Wischhusen, G Ital Dermatol Venereol 2008 (Dec 17) [Epub ahead of print][PubMed Citation][Full text PDF].
Finding articles on CSC via OAIster or PMC
A mentioned in a previous post, in addition to this OA-oriented blog, I’m currently also editing another blog, Cancer Stem Cell News. I recently, using OAIster, searched the “entire record” field for the phrase “cancer stem cell*”. The search for articles about CSC was limited to resource type “text”, and the results were sorted in “date descending” order. This search yielded 167 records. Of these 167, 136 (81%) were obtained from 5/29 (17%) of the contributors. These 5 were: PubMed Central (PMC) [41 records]; CiteBase [39]; HighWire Press, Stanford University [20]; BioMed Central (BMC) [19] and Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Repository [17]. The remaining 24/29 contributors (83%) provided 31/167 (19%) of the records. Perhaps, another example of the Pareto principle (for many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes)?
The most recent article, dated 2008-06-09, was Mammosphere culture of metastatic breast cancer cells enriches for tumorigenic breast cancer cells by Matthew J Grimshaw, Lucienne Cooper, Konstantinos Papazisis, Julia A Coleman, Hermann R Bohnenkamp, Laura Chiapero-Stanke, Joyce Taylor-Papadimitriou and Joy M Burchell. Publisher: BMC. PubMed Citation: Breast Cancer Res 2008; 10(3): R52. Epub 2008 Jun 9. (The full citation for this article isn’t included in the OAIster record).
This same article can also be accessed via PMC. The Conclusion section of the PMC Abstract:
This paper shows, for the first time, that mammosphere culture of pleural effusions enriches for cells capable of inducing tumours in SCID mice. The data suggest that mammosphere culture of these metastatic cells could provide a highly appropriate model for studying the sensitivity of the tumorigenic ‘stem’ cells to therapeutic agents and for further characterisation of the tumour-inducing subpopulation of breast cancer cells.
Comment: A search of PMC for the phrase “cancer stem cells” yielded access to articles published more recently than the one cited above. For example, a search limited to articles added to PMC in the last 30 days (done on November 9) yielded 3 citations, all published in November 2008.
Two OA articles about cancer stem cells
A recent article and an earlier review, co-authored by members of the same research group, are currently available from the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. They are:
1) High aldehyde dehydrogenase and expression of cancer stem cell markers selects for breast cancer cells with enhanced malignant and metastatic ability, by Alysha K Croker and 6 co-authors, including Alison L Allan, J Cell Mol Med 2008(Aug 4). [Epub ahead of print] [PubMed Abstract]. Currently, a PDF version of the full text is gratis OA.
2) Cancer stem cells: implications for the progression and treatment of metastatic disease, a review by Alysha K Croker and Alison L Allan, J Cell Mol Med 2008(Apr); 12(2): 374-90 [PubMed Abstract]. Currently, both the HTML and PDF versions of the full text are gratis OA.
For more about these two articles, and the journal in which they both were published, see: Breast cancer stem cells hard to kill? Cancer Stem Cell News, October 19, 2008.
It’s not clear, either from the articles themselves, or from the PubMed citations, that these articles were intended to be OA.
Cancer Stem Cell News blog
On August 28, 2008, I began editing another blog, entitled: “Cancer Stem Cell News“:
A blog of news items related to cancer stem cells, with an emphasis on recent research and articles that are openly accessible.
It’s a blog of the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium (CSCC):
The Cancer Stem Cell Consortium (CSCC) is a groundbreaking organization founded in 2007 by a group of Canadian funding agencies to support international collaboration on a promising new front in the fight against cancer—research on cancer stem cells, which direct the growth of the many kinds of tumours.
I’m a member of the Board of the CSCC, and have taken initial responsibility for the CSCC blog in order to highlight the advantages of improved access to news and publications about the rapidly-expanding field of research on cancer stem cells. An interim analysis of a randomized controlled trial (BMJ 2008(July 31);337:a568) has already provided additional strong evidence that open access increases the dissemination of scientific articles. See a comment of mine about this trial:
The enhanced transfer of knowledge to those whose access currently is restricted because of price barriers is an important example of the advantages of OA.
A special feature in Nature Reviews Cancer
As is pointed out in: Cancer stem cells in solid tumours: a review (Cancer Stem Cell News, September 25, 2008), there’s a review entitled: Cancer stem cells in solid tumours: accumulating evidence and unresolved questions, by Jane E. Visvader & Geoffrey J. Lindeman, in Nature Reviews Cancer 2008(Oct); 8(10): 755-68. This review is currently available gratis, as a special feature, to registered visitors to Nature Reviews Cancer. Registration is also free. Yet another NPG experiment with OA? (See also: OA to Nature supplement, Gavin Baker, Open Access News, September 23, 2008).
Be openly accessible or be obscure 