Serious side effect: Several FDA-approved anti-cancer drugs induce stem cell tumors

In a surprise finding, researchers discovered that several chemotherapeutics that do stop fast growing tumors have the opposite effect on stem cells in the same animal, causing them to divide too rapidly. Not only is the finding of clinical interest, but with this study they successfully used a new non-traditional tool for assessing drugs using stem cells in the fruit fly gut, the first author says.