Telomere News and Research

Latest Telomere News and Research

U.S. scientists have successfully engineered blood vessels from human vascular cells in the lab

Tissue engineering has made considerable progress in the past decade, but advances have stopped short of clinical application for most tissues. For elderly patients tissue-engineered arteries could provide grafts for bypass surgery.

16 Jun 2005

Arteries bio-engineered from elderly cells

Researchers from Duke University's Medical Center and Pratt School of Engineering have demonstrated that they can grow new human blood vessels from cells taken from patients who especially need such assistance – older adults with cardiovascular disease.

14 Jun 2005

People who smoke or are obese are biologically older than slim individuals and non-smokers

Obesity and smoking are important risk factors for many age-related diseases. Tim Spector (St. Thomas’ Hospital, UK) and colleagues in the USA looked for evidence of ageing at a molecular level in smokers and obese individuals.

13 Jun 2005

Ancient protein could be critical to stopping the uncontrolled division of tumor cells that cause cancer

Molecular Biology and Microbiology professor Mark Muller has found that the protein, called MKRN1, promotes the destruction of an enzyme called telomerase that enables rapid duplication of cells. While researchers have known for years that healthy cells repress telomerase, they haven't understood why.

19 Apr 2005

Scientists identify novel regulator of telomere homeostasis

Each of our 46 chromosomes is capped by a telomere – a long stretch of repeated DNA (TTAGG). Telomeres play a key protective function in our cells, and now Dr. In Kwon Chung and colleagues at Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea) and the University of Central Florida reveal a novel mechanism to modulate telomere length.

3 Apr 2005

Telomerase finding has major implications for cancer

UCLA biochemists have determined the three-dimensional structure of a major domain of telomerase, the enzyme that helps maintain telomeres - small pieces of DNA on the ends of chromosomes that act as protective caps - allowing DNA ends to be copied completely when cells are replicated.

9 Mar 2005

Two chemicals boost immune cells' ability to fight HIV without gene therapy

A UCLA AIDS Institute study has discovered that two chemical compounds may help the immune systems of HIV-infected persons fight the disease without invasive gene therapy.

7 Mar 2005

Study provides insight into strategies for telomere-based molecular cancer therapeutics

A new study published in the January issue of Cancer Cell provides exciting new information about how to boost the effectiveness of a promising cancer treatment that targets telomeres in an attempt to interfere with the ability of a cancer cell to continuously divide.

17 Jan 2005

Genetic mutations and cellular modifications may provide clues to the associations between slight genetic abnormalities and often fatal diseases

Modern research is delving deep into the human genome to find the answers to medical mysteries and, hopefully, cures for the most deadly diseases. According to four new studies presented during the 46th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology

5 Dec 2004

Stress affects molecules believed to play a key role in cellular aging

There have been many studies that have shown that your health is greatly affected by how you react to stressful events in life-setbacks or deadlines at work, conflicts and losses at home.

29 Nov 2004

Researchers trim count of human genes to 20,000-25,000

Scientific description of the finished human genome sequence, reducing the estimated number of human protein-coding genes from 35,000 to only 20,000-25,000, a surprisingly low number for our species.

21 Oct 2004

Researchers discover that DNA fragments destroy melanoma cells

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine have discovered that small DNA fragments or oligonucleotides that resemble the telomere (chromosome end), also called T-oligos, can cause human melanoma cells to undergo extensive apoptosis (cell death), while surviving melanoma cells become more differentiated and therefore less aggressive.

1 Sep 2004

Scientists have developed the first mouse model Werner’s syndrome

Scientists have developed the first mouse model of a rare disease in which people age rapidly and start developing cancers and other diseases associated with the elderly when they are only about 30 years old.

20 Aug 2004

What is Telomere crisis?

Telomere crisis is an important early event in the development of breast cancer, and its occurrence can be identified with precision, according to recent findings by a team of scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at San Francisco.

11 Aug 2004

Evidence that abnormally short telomeres play a role in the early development of cancer

Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center say they have evidence that abnormally short telomeres - the end-caps on chromosomes that normally preserve genetic integrity -appear to play a role in the early development of many types of cancer.

27 May 2004

Cell division can be halted in multiple ways, with implications for cancer

Brown University researchers have found that there are multiple independent ways to stop cell division, a phenomenon that prevents the spread of genetic mutation, which can make cells cancerous. Results of this research, along with an accompanying editorial, were published in the current issue of the journal Molecular Cell.

20 May 2004

Mystery surrounding ageing, death and cancer is dispelled by new study

Scientists from Cancer Research UK and Breast Cancer Campaign have uncovered the first evidence of an entirely new system for holding the ravages of time at bay.

29 Apr 2004