Interesting article in the New York Times about "the biology of cancer cells". I had never heard this theory before (and I have done a ton of research on the topic)!
The research hypothesis is that some types of cancer have "stem cells" that are responsible for the regeneration or recurrance of cancer (similar to the notion that blood stem cells are responsible for the regeneration of our blood cells). Research on leukemia found that nearly 1 million leukemia cancer cells needed to be implanted into a mouse in order for the cancer to grow. Fewer than that and the cancer did not grow in the mice. This suggests that the 1 in a million leukemia stem cell could be responsible for regeneration.
"If stem cells can be found for certain forms of cancer, and if a drug can be found to kill these cells in humans, then the clinical impact of such a discovery would obviously be enormous. And its scientific impact would be just as profound. Centuries after the discovery of cancer as a disease, we are learning not just how to treat it — but what cancer truly is."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31Cancer-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2
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