The telomerase challenge - an unusual problem in drug discovery.
Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein that is responsible for maintaining telomere length. The observation that telomerase activity is found in many types of tumors, but not in adjacent normal tissue, has led to the hypothesis that telomerase is a novel target for chemotherapy. Inhibitors of telomerase activity are essential to validate this hypothesis, and their design presents special opportunities and challenges.