We present evidence that: (i) the proteome of adherent cells is different to the proteome of cells grown in sphere medium from either early passage (passage 2) or late passage (passage 5) spheres; (ii) that spheres are enriched in expression of a variety of tumour-relevant proteins (including MUC1 and Galectin-3); and (iii) that targeting of one of these identified proteins (galectin-3) using an inhibitor (N-acetyllactosamine) decreases sphere formation/self-renewal of MCF-7 cancer stem cells in vitro and tumourigenicity in vivo. The gene discussed is MUC1; the disease is neoplasm.