BENCHMARKS

performs the maintenance of chromo-some ends by a reverse-transcription mechanism, is an essential immortal-izing factor in mammalian cells. While telomerase is repressed in most human somatic cells, its reactivation is strong-ly associated with 80%–90 % of the advanced tumors of over 30 types stud-ied (see Reference 1 for review). This makes telomerase the most universal tumor marker in oncology diagnostics, as well as a useful molecular probe of proliferative potential of cells in bio-medical research. The telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) is the primary technique for the sensitive de-tection and semiquantitative evaluation of telomerase activity (2). However, it requires a relatively time-consuming analytical phase, typically involving polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and densitometry. Alternatively, it is possible to evaluate telomerase activity by ELISA (TeloTAGGG ™ Telomer