The future of cancer therapy will involve the targeting of mechanisms found broadly in many or all different types of cancer, that cancer cells cannot dispense with as they evolve rapidly within a tumor, and which have little to no effect on non-cancerous cells. Targeting telomerase to prevent the lengthening of telomeres can check the first two of those boxes, leaving the question of how best to effectively restrict the treatment to tumor cells. Targeting alternative lengthening of telomeres can check the second and third boxes, but the mechanism only operates in a minority of cancers. The research community is engaged in finding other approaches that might satisfy some of these…
Selective Disruption of Replication in Cancerous Cells by Targeting PCNA
The future of cancer therapy will involve the targeting of mechanisms found broadly in many or all different types of cancer, that cancer cells cannot dispense with as they evolve rapidly within a tumor, and which have little to no effect on non-cancerous cells. Targeting telomerase to prevent the lengthening of telomeres can check the first two of those boxes, leaving the question of how best to effectively restrict the treatment to tumor cells. Targeting alternative lengthening of telomeres can check the second and third boxes, but the mechanism only operates in a minority of cancers. The research community is engaged in finding other approaches that might satisfy some of these…