shark immune system secretion inhibits growth of human cancer tumours…

Studies into the low rate of disease amongst sharks leads to exciting implications for human cancer treatment.

Scientists have spent 10 years using carcinogens to try to induce cancer in sharks and skates, to no avail. After turning their attention to trying to understand shark immunology, they were able to confirm that sharks have a unique lymphoid tissue, not present in any other animals, that does nothing but make immune cells.

These unusual immune cells were found, in the lab, to secrete a substance that inhibits human tumor cells. So far they’ve tested the substance–they’re still not exactly sure what it is–on 18 different human tumor cell lines, including breast and pancreatic cancer. It’s inhibited all of them.

Funding is now being sought for further testing, efforts to further understand and identify sharks’ tumor-inhibiting secretion, making it possible one day for scientists to synthesize it.

From Forbes.com: Read more