Article: SCIENCE SCAN WHY DOES CHEMOTHERAPY CAUSE BALDNESS BUT SPARE OTHER HEALTHY CELLS? ARTICLE IMPUTES APOPTOSIS.(Brief Article)

Editor's note: Science Scan is a roundup of recently published biotechnology-relevant research.

Cancer chemotherapy often causes temporary baldness. What happens is that the DNA-damaging drugs that attack the fast-dividing cells of malignant tumors also go after the fast-dividing healthy cells of hair follicles. That alopecia then prompts the cells to self-destruct by the natural process of apoptosis - programmed cell death. Why then, the question arises, don't those drugs lay waste to all the healthy calls in the cancer patient's body? The answer is that it's not known why chemotherapeutic compounds don't elicit apoptosis in healthy cells. The standard ...

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