(Continued from part I) Most people who’ve meet cancer on the battlefield of treatment, doctors or patients, come away with the impression of a robust and formidable foe that can only be defeated with the most terrible weapons. But this impression is somewhat misleading. The cancers that come to our attention are selected for being…
A menacing shadow looms large over the body. Lessons we’ve learned from the eternal struggle of organism against cell are etched into the farthest corners of the genome, patches on top of patches, shoring up our weaknesses for the next time the conflict erupts. And yet, even with a standing army dedicated to repairing DNA,…
Part of a series on the Hallmarks of Aging. Proteins don’t do everything in your body, but it’s fair to say they control everything. What they don’t do directly, they catalyze. Proteins handle everything from copying DNA, to stabilizing a neuron’s physical structure, to turning starch into sugar. If something goes wrong in the body,