The thought of aging, as a young man, was farthest from my mind. It was something my parents and others were going through, not me. That mindset was a long, long time ago. Now it’s different. As I think about the aging process today, three things come to mind: Mt. Colden; the 7-year itch; and an idea about aging from the past.
Cancerous and precancerous cells can detect that they are abnormal and kill themselves, or remain alive indefinitely but cease proliferating, through two intrinsic processes called programmed cell death and cellular senescence. One goal of cancer chemotherapy is to help stimulate these potent antitumor processes. Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island have recently shown that by locking cancer cells into a permanent state in which they remain alive but can no longer proliferate, cellular senescence contributes to successful outcomes following cancer therapy. Now, the same group has uncovered a precise molecular mechanism that helps trigger the “stop growing” response of cells. The study is published in the June 13 issue of the journal Cell.
