Cancer's new Achilles' heel?

Cancer's new Achilles' heel?

Claims to the discovery of cancers Achilles’ heel are multiple, even clichéd. Analogies to this Greek myth usually refer to the fall of the undefeatable, yet the novelty behind the legend is that a seemingly immortal foe could be toppled by something so innocuous as his heel. This may be the case for cancer and a non-coding mitochondrial RNA that as yet has no known physiological function or me...

Antagonizing XIAP-mediated caspase-3 inhibition. Achilles' heel of cancers?

In this issue of Cancer Cell, Schimmer et al. report the identification of small molecule antagonists of XIAP that overcome its inhibition of caspase-3. It was remarkable that the compounds directly induced cell death in tumor cells while having little toxicity on normal cells. This suggests that caspases are already activated in tumor cells, which is different from the caspase activation statu...

A new Achilles Heel in breast cancer?

The female sex hormones, estrogens (E) and progesterone (P) are major determinants of postnatal mammary gland development and are thought to promote breast carcinogenesis. How do they impact on the human breast? The most widely used models to study E and P signaling are hormone receptor positive breast cancer cell lines. However, it is unclear to what extent they provide insights into the breas...

Ideology: Criminology's Achilles' Heel?

The Achilles ’ Heel of CyberDefense