Human telomerase caught in the act.

Based on prior work, it was expected that telomerase would preferentially elongate the shortest telomeres in a cell, extending the telomeric G-rich strand through a process that is coupled to the synthesis of the complementary strand. Contrary to this view, Zhao et al. (2009) now show that telomerase in human cancer cells extends most telomeres during every S phase and that complementary strand synthesis does not immediately follow telomerase action.