1. Overview of DNA repair pathways / Deborah L. Croteau and Vilhelm A. Bohr -- 2. Longevity assurance by genome maintenance / Paul Hasty, Yousin Suh and Jan Vijg -- 3. Genetic instability of cancer : biological predictions and clinical implications / Robert A. Beckman -- 4. Radiation induced DNA damage, repair, and therapeutics / Lynn Harrison -- 5. Chemotherapeutic alkylating agents in cancer treatment / Tracey D. Bradshaw -- 6. O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) in cancer protection and therapy / Bernd Kaina and Markus Christmann -- 7. DNA mismatch repair : it's role in human carcinogenesis and as a predictive and/or prognostic biomarker for cancer therapy / Timothy J. Kinsella -- 8. DNA base excision repair therapeutics : summary of targets with a focus on APE1 / Melissa L. Fishel, Carlo Vascotto and Mark R. Kelley -- 9. Nucleotide excision repair : DNA repair capacity variability and cancer susceptibility / Li-E Wang and Qingyi Wei -- 10. Fanconi anemia, interstrand cross-link repair, and cancer / Taraswi Banerjee, Sanjay Kumar Bharti and Robert M. Brosh, Jr -- 11. Functions of translesion DNA polymerases : implications for cancer risk and opportunities as therapeutic targets / Kinrin Yamanaka and R. Stephen Lloyd -- 12. p53 in DNA damage, repair and cancer therapeutics / Aditi Gurkar, Kiki Chu and Sam W. Lee -- 13. ATM/ATR cell cycle checkpoints : mechanisms and manipulation in cancer therapy / Marie Fernet, Sara Chiker and Janet Hall -- 14. The BRCA1-BRCA2 pathway of homologous recombination and the opportunity for synthetic lethal approaches to cancer therapy / Laura J. Eccles ... [et al.] -- 15. PARP and PARP inhibitor therapeutics / Nicola J. Curtin -- 16. Tumor genetics and personalized medicine / Mary Ellen Urick and Daphne W. Bell -- 17. The tumor microenvironment and DNA repair : implications for cancer progression and treatment / Norman Chan, Shaqil Kassam and Robert G. Bristow -- 18. Early phase clinical trials using DNA repair inhibitors : lessons learnt / Miranda Payne and Mark Middleton.