This author interview is by Dr Jafaar Makki, of Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Malaysia.  Dr Makki's full paper, Expression distribution of cancer stem cell, epithelial to mesenchymal transition and telomerase activity in breast cancer and their association with clinicopathological characteristic, is available for download in Clinical Medicine Insights: Pathology.

Please summarise for readers the content of your article.

My research deals with three novel concepts in breast cancer biology. These concepts (Cancer stem cells, Epithelial to Mesenchymal transition and Telomerase activity) are responsible for the initiation, propagation, invasion, progression and metastasis of breast carcinoma. It is important to study and identify these cancer cells to find new markers and proteins.  These could help invent a new therapeutic agent that could target tumor cells with CSC and EMT phenotypes at various stage of differentiation, sparing normal stem cells and reducing side effects.

How did you come to be involved in your area of study?

It is related to my daily practice as histopathologist.

What was previously known about the topic of your article?

Most of the previous research deals with animal inoculated specimens or cell lines. This study was performed on clinical human specimens and supports the relationship between cancer stem cells and epithelial to mesenchymal transition suggested by those previous non-clinical trials.

How has your work in this area advanced understanding of the topic?

By using three new medical technique ( IHC, IF, and flowcytometry) to highlight, verify and validate our results.

What do you regard as being the most important aspect of the results reported in the article?

It proved the claim from previous studies about the relationship and association between cancer stem cells and epithelial to mesenchymal transition.

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