US researchers have recently claimed of having found an effective method of keeping tumor cells alive in laboratories. The claim of the researchers have shed ray of hopes that soon an effective cancer treatment could be designed.

The lead author of the study, Richard Schlegel was reported of saying, “This would really be the ultimate in personalized medicine…The therapies would be exactly from their tissues. We would get normal tissue and tumor tissue from a particular patient and specifically match up their therapies”.

The findings of the researchers have been published in the online edition of the American Journal of Pathology. It has been informed that the researchers used the simple stem cell method to find the method of keeping tumor alive.

By using the technique, the researchers were able to keep alive the tumors of lung, breast, colon and prostate cancer. It has further been revealed that to keep the cells alive, the researchers combined the tumor cells with fibroblast feeder cells and Rho kinase (ROCK) inhibitor. The ROCK allows the tumor cells to reproduce.

Schlegel informed that when the tumor cells were combined with the two then they turned in stem-like state. A number of scientists in three different laboratories of the US are working on it. If researchers continuous to put efforts in the same manner then they would be able to find a personalized way of treating cancer, which kill millions of people every year.

It is hoped that through the findings of the researchers, many lives will be saved. Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases which often lead to death of a victim. It is for the very first time when the researchers have found a way of keeping tumor cells alive.