Airway stem cells and lung cancer

Lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer in the UK and despite recent therapeutic advances there is a desperate need for new therapies to improve outcomes from this devastating disease. Through defining the spatial location of the airway epithelial stem or progenitor cell populations and their mechanisms of maintenance and repair of the epithelium it is becoming clear that these populations are situated at areas corresponding to those involved in lung cancer initiation. We explore the evidence for stem cells being the cancer initiator cell and for a 'lung cancer stem cell' within tumours that may be the cause of resistance to current therapies.