A recent experiment has shown that the human body may be able to reverse cancer on its own. Scientists managed to clone mouse embryos from a melanoma skin cancer cell and were amazed to find that they grew up into healthy adult mice.

The scientists, from MIT, USA, said this demonstrated that the cancer cell does not always lead to malignancy.

Head researcher, Rudolf Jaenisch, MIT, said that this experiment settled the principal biological question. He explained that it is true the genetic elements of cancer will never be reversed, it is impossible. However, how the cancer genes are switched on or off can be reversed - the epigenetics.

You can read about this experiment in the journal Genes and Development.

This discovery could completely change the way cancer is treated in the future.

Lynda Chine, one of the scientists in the team, said \"Drugs that target the cancer epigenome may prove to be a key therapeutic opportunity for diverse cancers.\"

The scientists took the nucleus from a melanoma cell and injected it into a mouse egg cell, the cell had been hollowed out. As if it had been fertilised by a male sperm, the egg started growing.

From the mouse embryo that developed the scientists harvested embryonic stem cells and put them into healthy mouse blastocysts. Blastocysts are embryos that are only a couple of days old. These blastocysts then developed into normal adult mice (without cancer).

The scientist said that this demonstrated that cancer cells can develop into healthy cells. They said the stem cells were incorporated into most, if not all, tissues of adult mice, including skin pigmentation cells, immune cells and connective tissue.The scientists added that this would only occur if the cancer cells had lost their malignancy.

When cancer genes in these mice were activated, they developed malignant tumors much faster than normal mice, said the scientists.