Mutant p53 as a Potential Target Across Many Cancer Types

In the scientific commentary I'll point out today, the authors advocate for the expansion of efforts to target mutations of the cancer suppressor gene TP53, encoding the protein p53, as a path to cancer therapies that might be broadly applicable to many cancer types. As I've noted in the past, the biggest problem with the majority of today's cancer research isn't that it is challenging and expensive, but rather that the therapies resulting from these efforts are only applicable to one or a few of the hundreds of subtypes of cancer. This is no way to defeat cancer; there are too few scientists and too little funding to do things this way, one cancer at a time. What is needed is a shift in high level strategy to focus much more aggressively on paths that will produce technology platforms that can, out of the box, target a wide variety of cancers, or where the cost of adapting the technology to different cancer types is very low. This strategic focus is the reason for the SENS-advocated approach of blocking telomere lengthening, for example. All cancers must lengthen telomeres in order for continual cellular replication to take place, and there are a limited number of mechanisms by which that can happen. Without telomere lengthening, a cancer will wither away in short order. This is the most cost-effective way to deal with cancer: a small set of targets that can lead to a truly universal cancer therapy, a technology platform that can be easily adapted to each new type of ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs