Back to the future: breast cancer reprises pathways found in fetal cells

(Salk Institute) Salk Institute scientists have uncovered a reason for the uncanny likeness between cells in the most malignant cancers and the embryonic cells of the organ in which the cancer originated: cells in human basal-like breast cancers share features with the embryonic mammary (breast) stem cells that are the progenitors of all cell types in the mammary gland (of a mouse).