The study discovered why some animals express telomerase, an enzyme that lengthens the lives of cells but also increases the rate of cancer, while others, such as humans, don't.
Vera Gorbunova, who conducted the research, said: "Mice express telomerase in all their cells, which helps them heal dramatically fast. Skin lesions heal much faster in mice, and after surgery a mouse's recovery time is far shorter than a human's. It would be nice to have that healing power, but the flip side of it is runaway cell reproduction-cancer."
The findings are reported in the recent issue of "Aging Cell."
