Through the study of liver and pancreatic cancer cell lines and nude mice liver in situ tumor models, we have revealed the inhibitory effect of salinomycin on the growth of liver and pancreatic tumors in vitro and in vivo, and the related results were recently published in an international journal. The research results are considered to be a breakthrough in the fight against liver and pancreatic cancer. In 2009, U.S. researchers discovered a compound that “targets” and kills In 2009, U.S. researchers discovered a compound that “targets” and kills cancer stem cells in breast cancer – salinomycin. During laboratory studies, it was 100 times more effective than ordinary anti-cancer drugs in killing breast cancer stem cells in mice. In an article published August 13, 2009, in the online edition of the journal Cell, the researchers noted that they had found an antibiotic called salinomycin that directly kills cancer stem cells. In the study, the researchers first created a large number of cancer stem cells in the lab and then used 16,000 different chemicals against them in an attempt to screen them for chemicals that would be effective against cancer stem cells, and finally, the scientists selected salinomycin. Salinomycin not only killed the breast cancer stem cells in the mice, but also inhibited them from giving birth to new tumor cells, while slowing the growth of the already existing tumors. Since then, some researchers have found that salinomycin can inhibit the growth of a variety of tumors, however, its role and mechanism in liver and pancreatic tumors remains poorly understood. In recent years, experts have treated human liver and pancreatic cancer cell lines, such as HepG2, SMMC-7721 and BEL-7402, with different concentrations and duration of drug treatment in vitro. The results showed that salinomycin inhibited the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines in a concentration- and time-dependent manner. Salinomycin could inhibit their proliferation, and the cell proliferation nuclear antigen PCNA was significantly decreased after treatment. In addition, salinomycin induced apoptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines by upregulating the ratio of Bak/Bcl-2. Most importantly, salinomycin also differed from commonly used antitumor drugs such as Paclitaxel, Gemcitabine which is sensitive to highly differentiated tumor cells, and reduced the proportion of CD133+ cells in hepatocellular carcinoma and pancreatic cancer cell lines. Meanwhile, the investigators similarly verified the proliferation-inducing apoptosis-inhibiting effect of salinomycin on liver tumors in a study in a nude mouse liver in situ tumor model. It was found that hepatocellular carcinoma and pancreatic cancer is a disease with complex pathogenesis, accompanied by abnormal expression of multiple signaling pathways, such as Hedgehog,Wnt, TGF -β, EGFR, VEGFR, MAPK, AKT, etc. Through screening, the researchers found that salinomycin could inhibit the transduction of Wnt signaling pathway, and the mechanism may be related to the increase of intracellular calcium ion concentration by salinomycin. This study showed in vivo and in vitro that salinomycin can effectively inhibit the growth of liver and pancreatic tumors and can inhibit the growth of tumor cell subpopulations with stem cell characteristics, which provides a new idea to effectively address the problem of drug resistance in chemotherapy treatment of liver and pancreatic tumors.