Cancer cells create too much telomerase, but blocking the enzyme makes cancer cells more vulnerable.
She actually discovered the enzyme, telomerase, while making a random, small change in her experiment.
Understanding telomerase is important when looking for clues about aging and cures for degenerative diseases and cancer.
It's possible, Okarma said, that the optimal way to target telomerase will be to use both companies' drugs.
The two firms will use their different telomerase-based technologies to test one another.
It centers on structures at the end of chromosomes called telomeres and an enzyme that forms them, called telomerase.
These came from a single-celled organism called a tetrahymena - the same organism in which telomerase was first discovered.
Work by the researchers determined that telomeres protect DNA from degradation in the process, and that telomerase maintains the telomeres.
Geron will retain rights of its most advanced telomerase vaccine, with an option for Merck to buy it in the future.
The plan is to block telomerase, an enzyme that prevents the ends of DNA and seems to prevent cells from aging.
The research team was also recognized for its discovery of telomerase, which is the enzyme that causes the chromosome ends to stay intact when they divide.
"If TA-65 qualifies, we would then be able to introduce a telomerase-activating product that can make certain medical claims that TA-65 as a nutritional supplement cannot make, " says Mr. Patton.
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The eight-week study found that people who meditated showed a 43% improvement in telomerase activity, an enzyme that regulates telomere length, compared with a 3.7% gain in the group listening to music.
It has previously proved difficult to study telomerase in close detail because the enzyme tends to clump together outside of cells, preventing it from forming the ordered crystals necessary for structural analysis.
In a note to investors, Stephen Brozak, an analyst at WBB Capital who has covered Geron on-and-off longer than perhaps any other analyst, wrote that the deal could be "potentially the validation" of the telomerase vaccine technology.
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