Telomeres, cancer & aging: live long & prosper?

Like our clothes, our chromosomes fray at the edges with age. Some believe that if we could discover a molecular tailor to patch our age-abraded chromosome ends, we could become modern Methuselahs. Notably, cancer cells achieve immortality by protecting their chromosome ends. Drugs that selectively fray the ends of cancer cell chromosomes would be potent and general anti-cancer therapies. Here, I summarize data on the role of chromosome ends in cellular and organismal aging.