Biological Resilience in Cancer and Aging: From Protective Mechanisms to Therapeutic Hijacking

Cancer and aging represent two of the most formidable challenges in biology, yet life across species exhibits extraordinary resilience, defined as the ability to maintain function and repair damage under stress. Also, among all organs, the heart displays a remarkable natural resistance to malignant transformation. While these mechanisms, ranging from enhanced DNA repair to metabolic plasticity, typically serve to preserve organismal health, a critical paradox emerges in oncology: Cancer cells often hijack these same resilience programs for their own advantage. Tumor cells exploit pro-survival, repair, and stress-resistance pathways to evade therapy and promote disease progression.Understanding how resilience mechanisms protect the host versus how malignancies weaponize them is essential for advancing geroscience and oncology. This Research Topic seeks to bridge the gap between mechanisms that delay pathology and those that fuel resistance, offering a platform for innovation in both prevention and targeted intervention.Scope and ThemesWe welcome contributions from cancer biology, geroscience, immunology, systems biology, and evolutionary medicine. We particularly encourage studies that explore the "double-edged sword" of resilience in the following areas:• Mechanisms of Cellular and Molecular Resilience: Investigations into DNA repair, proteostasis, mitochondrial fitness, and metabolic regulation, with an emphasis on how these pathways are either maintained for longevity or exploited for tumor survival.• The Hijacking of Repair and Pro-Survival Pathways: How cancer cells co-opt stress-response programs (e.g., heat shock response, autophagy, antioxidant defenses) to resist chemotherapy, radiation, and targeted biological agents.• Immune Resilience and Evasion: Strategies that enhance immune surveillance to prevent aging-related decline versus mechanisms where the tumor microenvironment subverts immune "resilience" to foster exhaustion and escape.• Evolutionary and Comparative Models: Lessons from naturally long-lived or cancer-resistant species (e.g., bowhead whale, naked mole rat) regarding the trade-offs between tissue maintenance and malignant transformation.• Translational Opportunities: Interventions, such as senolytics, calorie restriction mimetics, or "resilience-inhibitors," that aim to bolster host health while simultaneously neutralizing the adaptive advantages of cancer cells. Topic editors: Weimin Gao, Jordan Robin Yaron, Roger Johnson Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81034/biological-resilience-in-cancer-and-aging-from-protective-mechanisms-to-therapeutic-hijacking