Images show DNA repair in action

"We have been able to see, for the first time, a natural antioxidant at work repairing DNA," said Gregory Verdine, professor of chemistry. "Understanding this particular process is especially important because it has been widely implicated in human cancers." Verdine and his colleagues were the first to capture images of natural repairs being made on DNA damaged by oxidation. The same process has been implicated in aging. Mice that age prematurely possess a defective mechanism for repairing oxidized DNA. Loss of a key mending protein appears to work with other genetic factors to accelerate the journey toward death.