Of all the risk factors associated with cancer: obesity, smoking, sun exposure etc., there is none more universal than aging. According to a 2011 report on Global Health and Aging, the number of people aged 65 or older is projected to reach 1.5 billion by 2050 and correspondingly the yearly number of new cancer cases alone is estimated to reach 27 million by 2030. Therefore it is of paramount importance to develop new anti-cancer approaches to meet the humanitarian and economic challenges associated with our aging global population.

One such approach is to target cancers that employ a particular mechanism to achieve cellular immortality — Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres, or “ALT”.

Based on the conservative estimate that 10 percent of cancers employ an ALT strategy to achieve cellular immortality, there are about 1.4 million new cases and 820,000 deaths globally due to ALT cancers every year. We expect these numbers to at least double by 2030 as the world’s population ages and telomerase-based anticancer therapies gain approval to treat cancer patients. Therefore, the development of ALT-targeted therapies is critically needed in the fight against aging and cancer.

Donate to this worthy effort here: https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/sens-control-alt-delete-cancer/