Cancer treatments can be unsuccessful due to malignant cells surviving radiation, chemotherapy, or by evading apoptosis. Now researchers from the University of Tsukuba in Japan, demonstrate how the protein Livin—an apoptosis inhibitor—allows some lymphomas to resist therapy, and how targeting it may prove to be a practical treatment strategy in refractory cases.
Apoptosis is the opposite of cell growth; it is cell death and it is a normal function of cells. If a cell detects that it has damaged DNA, it can activate apoptosis to remove itself from the population. Apoptosis has been established as a mechanism of anticancer defense.
