The intersection of stem cell biology and cancer research offers a unique window into how tumors arise, evolve, and resist treatment. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are now recognized as major contributors to tumor heterogeneity, metastasis, and relapse following conventional therapies. At the same time, cellular reprogramming technologies have opened new avenues for modeling cancer initiation and testing therapeutic strategies. Yet, despite these conceptual advances, methods across the two fields remain fragmented, making it difficult to compare results and translate findings across laboratories.

This Topical Collection seeks to address this challenge by assembling a curated set of reproducible, video-format protocols spanning three interconnected areas:

1. Stem cell biology: Methods covering the derivation, maintenance, and differentiation of pluripotent and adult stem cells.
2. Cancer biology: Techniques for studying tumor progression, metastasis, and therapeutic response.
3. The stem cell-cancer interface: Protocols for cancer stem cell (CSC) isolation, reprogramming-based cancer models, and therapeutic strategies targeting self-renewal pathways.

By bringing together validated protocols from these domains, this collection will serve as an invaluable resource for researchers at all career stages. It will promote methodological standardization, encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration, and ultimately accelerate the translation of stem cell insights into better cancer diagnostics, prognostics, and treatments. We welcome contributions ranging from well-established techniques to emerging approaches, with a strong emphasis on clarity, practicality, and reproducibility.