A very interesting question. There are several ways by which cancer cells are capable of initiating the EMT program through pathways other than the TGF beta/Smad. A serum-free medium with EGF and other specific growth factors can induce EMT if the micro-environment is precisely altered. This can be attained by simply replacing the standard growing media with the media I just mentioned, in stably growing and proliferating cells few days after plating. However, you might end up with stem-like cells (cancer stem cells) as well if you are working with cancer cells.