Drugging DNA repair

All the cells in our bodies suffer many thousands of DNA lesions every day (1). The vast majority of these lesions are safely dealt with by cellular DNA repair and associated DNA damage response (DDR) activities that are, as a consequence, vital for life. Defects in or deregulation of our DNA repair/DDR systems are linked to many human pathologies (2). Yet, perhaps counterintuitively, pharmacological inhibitors of DNA repair/DDR have considerable potential in treating various human diseases, particularly cancer.