Cancer’s Grip May Be Loosened by Tampering with DNA Clamp

To trip up fast-proliferating cancer cells, try throwing a wrench in their proliferation machinery, the aptly named proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). Wielding a new kind of wrench, a drug-like protein called a peptidomimetic ligand, scientists based at the University of Adelaide have jammed PCNA more effectively than scientists who have deployed more conventional drugs.The scientists, led by John Bruning, Ph.D., structural biologist at the University of Adelaide, say that their drug-lik