A defining characteristic of cancer cells is their immortality. Usually, normal cells are limited in the number of times they can divide before they stop growing.

Cancer cells, however, can overcome this limitation to form tumors and bypass "mortality" by continuing to replicate. Telomeres play an essential role in determining how many times a cell can divide.

Telomerase is encoded by a gene called TERT, one of the most frequently mutated genes in cancer. TERT mutations cause cells to make a little too much telomerase and are thought to help cancer cells ...

A fungus trapped in King Tut's tomb, once feared for killing scientists, may now save lives by targeting leukemia cells in ...

Cancer cells, however, can overcome this limitation to form tumors and bypass “mortality” by continuing to replicate. Telomeres play an essential role in determining how many times a cell can ...

Kimberly Koss is fighting an aggressive form of breast cancer. She hopes that long after she dies, her cancer cells will continue to live on in an immortal cell line that would be similar to the ...

Unlike the current assumption that cancer cells divide uncontrollably because their Circadian clocks are broken, the new study finds that cell division is uncontrolled in an immortal cell line ...

Then something amazing happened: the cancerous cells grew and continued to grow outside of her body. As Henrietta herself lay dying, the HeLa immortal cell line was born.

Aggressive brain cancer cells are able to prolong their own lifespans indefinitely. How does this happen, and what strategy might curb this mechanism?

Far from being immortal , most cancer cells seem unable to multiply limitlessly and spread throughout the body. Dot Bennett of St George's University of London and colleagues found that only four ...

Theory which states that all cancer cells are mortal is proved wrong. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have uncovered an important clue to one of the mechanisms that ...