{"id":103226,"date":"2020-03-03T22:45:02","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T06:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/chemists-inhibit-a-critical-gear-of-cell-immortality"},"modified":"2020-03-03T22:45:02","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T06:45:02","slug":"chemists-inhibit-a-critical-gear-of-cell-immortality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/chemists-inhibit-a-critical-gear-of-cell-immortality","title":{"rendered":"Chemists inhibit a critical gear of cell immortality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/chemists-inhibit-a-critical-gear-of-cell-immortality2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the hallmarks of cancer is cell immortality. A Northwestern University organic chemist and his team now have developed a promising molecular tool that targets and inhibits one of cell immortality\u2019s underlying gears: the enzyme telomerase.<\/p>\n<p>This enzyme is found overexpressed in approximately 90% of human <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cancer+cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cancer cells<\/a> and has become an important subject of study for <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cancer\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cancer<\/a> researchers. Normal <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cells<\/a> have the gene for telomerase, but it typically is not expressed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTelomerase is the primary enzyme that allows cancer cells to live forever,\u201d said Karl A. Scheidt, who led the research. \u201cWe want to short-circuit this immortality. Now we have designed a first-of-its-kind small molecule that irreversibly binds to telomerase, shutting down its activity. This mechanism offers a new pathway for treating cancer and understanding cellular aging.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the hallmarks of cancer is cell immortality. A Northwestern University organic chemist and his team now have developed a promising molecular tool that targets and inhibits one of cell immortality\u2019s underlying gears: the enzyme telomerase. This enzyme is found overexpressed in approximately 90% of human cancer cells and has become an important subject [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}