Edited by: Karen Young Kreeger
C.M. Counter, J. Gupta, C.B. Harley, B. Leber, S. Bacchetti, "Telomerase activity in normal leukocytes and hematologic malignancies," Blood, 85:2315-20, 1995. (Cited in nearly 50 publications as of December 1996) Comments by Silvia Bacchetti, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.


TALLYING TELOMERASE: McMaster University’s Silvia Bacchetti and Chris Counter were the first to detect telomerase in noncancerous somatic cells.
The study of telomeres (the tips of chromosomes) and telomerase (the enzyme that maintains their length) has flourished in the last few years. Recent research has connected telomeres and telomerase with the regulation of a cell's life span, which may have far-reaching implications for the study of cancer.

Prior to the publication of this paper, comments Silvia Bacchetti, a professor of molecular biology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, researchers believed that outside of cancer cells telomerase would be present only in cells of...

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