This year is the eighth anniversary since the Weinberg lab has successfully turned normal cells into tumors through the inhibition of tumor suppressors and the introduction of oncogenes.
Fast forward to the present day, a wealth of scientific literature has exploded on the subject of cancer research, specifically on the role of stem cells in giving rise to tumors. Some scientists are pinpointing one of the causes of tumors to an aberrant function of stem cells that differentiate and give rise to functional, differentiated cells.
As an afterthought, it will be interesting to simulate under lab conditions the production of tumor cells from a stem cell. You can start with an ordinary stem cell, knock out tumor suppressors or induce oncogenes , or tweak other pathways and observe whether you can end up with a cancer stem cell. Mutational hits can also be induced in the normal stem cells by exposing them to mutagens, and the mutated gene(s) can be identified to elucidate the mechanism in which a normal stem cell can turn into a cancerous one.
Citations
Weinberg lab turns normal human cells into cancer cells. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/weinberg-0911.html
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