'Mutating' great white sharks could help fight cancer
Researchers are now looking at one of the fiercest predators in the ocean to help fight cancer in humans.
Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center in Florida is studying great white sharks and their DNA.
The study found the giant fish are just as tough of the inside as they are on the outside.
Researchers say the sharks actually “mutate” to fight diseases as they age, particularly cancer. And it all stems from their family genes.
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The doctor who headed the study tells Newsweek, "Genome instability is a very important issue in many serious human diseases, now we find that nature has developed clever strategies to maintain the stability of genomes in these large-bodied, long-lived sharks.”
Researchers also say the information revealed from sharks could help improve treatments that heal wounds.
And on the flip side, the DNA could also help the sharks themselves and reveal more about why their population is declining.
