Italians have made an advance in the use of stem cells to combat colon cancer.
A Palermo University team led by Giorgio Stassi has identified a stem cell which undermines chemotherapy treatment - but which can now itself be neutralised.
The cell, called interleukin-4, makes the tumour "virtually invulnerable to attack from chemo", Stassi told the international journal Cell Stem Cell.
"But this protective shield can be broken by using other molecules called IL-4 antagonists," he said.
Injecting the antagonists into colon cancer cells "has greatly increased the efficacy of anti-tumour treatment" in lab animals, the researcher said.
Stassi said human trials would begin "in a few months".
The breakthrough has reinforced an increasingly widely held view that stem-cell work "represents the future of cancer research," Stassi said.
Colon cancer is the second most lethal form of tumour after lung cancer.
But if it is caught early, survival rates are high.
However, patients often don't show symptoms until the later stages, when it is harder to treat. This is why the cancer claims so many lives.
Symptoms include unexplained constipation or diarrhoea, persistent rectal bleeding, severe pain in the abdomen and fatigue for no obvious cause.
