Friday, August 28, 2015
Helmsley Charitable Trust-Backed Program Explores DNA Damage Response to Find New Cancer Treatments
Every organism -- from a seedling to a president -- must protect its DNA at all costs, but precisely how a cell distinguishes between damage to its own DNA and the foreign DNA of an invading virus has remained a mystery.
Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have discovered critical details of how a cell's response system tells the difference between these two perpetual threats. The discovery could help in the development of new cancer-selective viral therapies and may help explain why aging and certain diseases seem to open the door to viral infections....