Recently during a research it has been found that varied stem cells can migrate to the surface of injured skin, where they can start the growth of tumors. The research was done by the Biochemists Sunny Wong and Jeremy Reiter of the University of California, San Francisco.

They had studied the most common type of skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma in their research. They did this research on a mouse model so as to determine if stem cells were involved.

They were very keen to do this because there were chances of basal cell carcinoma repeats the actions of stem cells.

The stem cells repairs skin damage. The growth becomes slow and sometimes transforms into other type of cells.

The researchers used a changed and different part of Smoothened (Smo), an oncogene. Oncogene is a type of a gene that can cause cancer when it mutates and mainly it is found mutated in human basal cell carcinoma.

The researchers have found that there was no change in the rate of carcinoma when the gene was stimulated.