Targeting telomeres may be used to treat lung cancer, according to researchers.

Healthy cells can only divide a limited number of times during an organism's lifetime. In contrast, tumor cells are immortal: they proliferate indefinitely and uncontrollably, and this is the defining characteristic of cancer. Researchers from the Telomeres and Telomerase Group at the CNIO (Spanish National Cancer Research Center), led by Maria Blasco, have studied for the first time the possibility of treating lung cancer by targeting the telomeres, the structures that protect the ends of chromosomes and whose condition determines the cell's ability to divide indefinitely. The results, as explained by the researchers in the journal Cell Death & Differentiation, show that, indeed, targeting telomeres "might be an effective therapeutic strategy" against non-small cell lung cancer, which is responsible for much of the mortality in lung cancer patients. The work has Sergio PiƱeiro as first author, recipient of a postdoctoral contract from the Spanish Association Ag...