A Gentle Introduction to Telomeres, Aging and Promising Cancer Research

A Gentle Introduction to Telomeres, Aging and Promising Cancer Research: "The Telegraph recently delivered an introductory popular science article on the implications and near future of telomere research: Within each and every one of your trillions of cells sits a molecular hour-glass. The time when each and every cell must stop dividing comes closer with every grain of sand that drops through this tiny clock. The grains are letters of DNA code that fall off these cellular timepieces. Scientists call them telomeres and there is good evidence that they go wrong in cancer so that, by fixing them, tumours could be made to expire on schedule. Earlier this month, a team in California managed to inhibit the spread of melanoma skin cancer by exploiting this mechanism. Longer life for your cells is not necessarily a good thing - cancer cells are an immortal machinery run amok, for example; an ultimately fatal hazard to finely tuned biochemistry that depends on cellular turnover and lifecycles. The melanoma research mentioned above is worth further reading if you are interested in seeing a facet of telomere research in action: In the st"