DNA repair. Damage-limitation exercises

DNA repair

Multiple DNA repair processes are required to maintain the integrity of the cellular genome. Recent advances, including elucidation of three-dimensional structures of DNA repair enzymes, and the cloning and characterization of DNA repair genes implicated in human inherited disease, have given new insights into the surprising complexity of cellular responses to DNA damage.

Mammalian DNA-repair genes

The sequence and functional homology of certain genes between mammalian and non-mammalian eukaryotes has facilitated significant advances in our understanding of mammalian DNA repair. Several novel DNA damage and repair genes have been identified by using a variety of approaches. Study of these genes will lead to an increased understanding of the biological consequences of aberrant DNA maintenance in humans and other species.

Life after Casey: the view from Rehnquist's Potemkin Village

The U.S. Supreme Court's most recent pronouncement on abortion rights [Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey] resembles the dieter's dilemma: one knows exactly how to get where one is going but lacks the willpower to follow through. In an opinion filled with exceptionally progressive, equality-based arguments for reproductive freedom, the Court nonetheless manages to back away from its own ineluctably drawn conclusions. In the end it not only ignores its own best arguments but eviscerates its previous analyses of fundamental rights and judicial protection of personal liberties from the excesses of the polity.