Overview of DNA repair pathways / Deborah L. Croteau and Vilhelm A. Bohr -- Longevity assurance by genome maintenance / Paul Hasty, Yousin Suh and Jan Vijg -- Genetic instability of cancer : biological predictions and clinical implications / Robert A. Beckman -- Radiation induced DNA damage, repair, and therapeutics / Lynn Harrison -- Chemotherapeutic alkylating agents in cancer treatment / Tracey D. Bradshaw -- O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) in cancer protection and therapy / Bernd Kaina and Markus Christmann -- DNA mismatch repair : it's role in human carcinogenesis and as a predictive and/or prognostic biomarker for cancer therapy / Timothy J. Kinsella -- DNA base excision repair therapeutics : summary of targets with a focus on APE1 / Melissa L. Fishel, Carlo Vascotto and Mark R. Kelley -- Nucleotide excision repair : DNA repair capacity variability and cancer susceptibility / Li-E Wang and Qingyi Wei -- Fanconi anemia, interstrand cross-link repair, and cancer / Taraswi Banerjee, Sanjay Kumar Bharti and Robert M. Brosh, Jr -- Functions of translesion DNA polymerases : implications for cancer risk and opportunities as therapeutic targets / Kinrin Yamanaka and R. Stephen Lloyd -- P53 in DNA damage, repair and cancer therapeutics / Aditi Gurkar, Kiki Chu and Sam W. Lee -- ATM/ATR cell cycle checkpoints : mechanisms and manipulation in cancer therapy / Marie Fernet, Sara Chiker and Janet Hall -- The BRCA1-BRCA2 pathway of homologous recombination and the opportunity for synthetic lethal approaches to cancer therapy / Laura J. Eccles [and others] -- PARP and PARP inhibitor therapeutics / Nicola J. Curtin -- Tumor genetics and personalized medicine / Mary Ellen Urick and Daphne W. Bell -- The tumor microenvironment and DNA repair : implications for cancer progression and treatment / Norman Chan, Shaqil Kassam and Robert G. Bristow -- Early phase clinical trials using DNA repair inhibitors : lessons learnt / Miranda Payne and Mark Middleton.