Much ado about p53

Despite extensive media attention on a Nature paper describing accelerated aging and senescence in mice with increased activity of the p53 tumor suppressor gene product, the finding should have no bearing on companies developing p53 therapeutics for cancer.

Last week's paper described research in mice with mutant p53 that has the phenotype of activated p53. The scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and colleagues showed that the animals were resistant to tumor formation associated with aging, but displayed a phenotype associated with early aging...