Telomerase

This book describes the nature of aging, age-related disorders, and the molecular principles of emerging strategies for anti-aging interventions, while also discussing the discovery of targets for geroprotective drugs. Although significant medical advances in the treatment and eradication of life-threatening conditions such as cardiovascular and infectious disease have been made over the past five decades, the prevalence of age-related disorders still remains high in older populations.

In Neural Stem Cells: Methods and Protocols, internationally recognized experts from academic, clinical, and pharmaceutical laboratories describe in great detail the most frequently used cellular, molecular, and electrophysiological methods to isolate, characterize, and utilize neural stem cells. These readily reproducible techniques introduce the various sources of stem/progenitor cells, provide a wide range of conditions for their culture, and make it possible to define their properties in culture. Additional techniques are designed to help researchers identify endogenous stem cells as well as exogenous stem cells after transplantation in the brain. The protocols range from the simplest methods of isolation and characterization of neural cell properties to such very sophisticated methods as characterizing gene expression, telomerase assays, and cell cycle kinetics.

This volume provides broad insights to the most recent discoveries in telomere biology, with current applications in tumor diagnostics and future potentials in therapy. Special features of diverse organisms are presented, with ciliates, the "telomerase discoverer organisms";

This book provides a comprehensive, highly readable overview of our current knowledge of the molecular pathology of basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas. The chapters present the newest findings in epidemiology, photocarcinogenesis, genetics, immunology and molecular pathology of these epithelial skin tumours. Topics include the importance of the hedgehog/patched/smoothened/GLI, p53, PDGF, or TGF-b signalling pathways as well as the relevance of papilloma virus infections, apoptosis, DNA-repair and telomerase.