SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Where might we look for inspiration for new cancer therapies? Some researchers say perhaps the bowhead whale. Here's science reporter Ari Daniel.
ARI DANIEL, BYLINE: So there's this paradox in cancer biology. Large, long-lived animals have lots of cells, which, in theory, should mean more chances to develop cancer.
VERA GORBUNOVA: But that's not what happens.
DANIEL: Vera Gorbunova is a biologist at the University of Rochester.
GORBUNOVA: It suggests that these large and longer-lived animals have additional protections from cancer that they evolved.
DANIEL: Take elephants. They have 20 copies of a key tumor suppressor gene. Humans have just one. This gene produces a protein called p53 that helps eliminate cells that turn precancerous.
GORBUNOVA: P53 protein can trigger cell death. Cells would commit suicide.
DANIEL: With more copies of this gene, elephants may eliminate more potentially problematic cells and keep their cancer rates down.
GORBUNOVA: We took it to another extreme. We decided, what if we look at whales that are even larger than elephant?
DANIEL: Specifically, the bowhead whale. It's not the largest whale, but it is the longest-lived, with animals capable of surpassing 200 years of age, something the Alaskan Inuit have known for generations.
GORBUNOVA: They use the traditional methods like rowboats to harvest a very small number of whales every year. So they very kindly agreed to share very small pieces with us so we could do our research.
DANIEL: Research that Gorbunova says might benefit the Inuit someday - a community grappling with growing cancer rates. So with fresh bowhead tissue in hand, she and her team began their experiments. She figured that since bowheads are bigger than elephants, maybe they just had even more copies of that tumor suppressor gene.
GORBUNOVA: But that's not what we found. So the next step was to think, what else can they do to avoid cancer?
DANIEL: Perhaps, she thought, bowheads are better at repairing DNA, since breaks in DNA can be dangerous and lead to cancer. Sure enough, the bowhead cells were far better at it than human cells.
GORBUNOVA: They were not losing pieces of DNA. They were fusing the ends correctly.
DANIEL: An ability due, at least in part, to a different protein that's way more abundant in bowhead cells and which is produced by a gene activated by the cold. When the researchers made human cells overproduce the protein, those cells repaired DNA breaks more efficiently. And when they caused live fruit flies to make a lot of the protein...
GORBUNOVA: They started living longer, and they also became more resistant to DNA damage.
DANIEL: Gorbunova says boosting the level of this protein in humans might one day help slow down our accumulation of mutations.
GORBUNOVA: The most important take-home message for us humans is that there is room for improvement.
DANIEL: The findings appear in the journal Nature. Amy Boddy is an evolutionary biologist at UC Santa Barbara who wasn't involved in the research. She studies elephants, among other species, and says drawing connections between human health and long-lived animals that may be vulnerable to extinction can pack a powerful conservation message.
AMY BODDY: Maybe we should protect against poaching because they are these amazing, magical creatures that can maybe one day help human health.
DANIEL: And these results may be just the beginning. Vincent Lynch, an evolutionary biologist at the University at Buffalo who didn't participate in this study, says animals like the bowhead have likely evolved additional ways to keep cancer at bay.
VINCENT LYNCH: We have literally uncovered a handful of the mechanisms that are responsible for their cancer resistance. There's going to be a whole lot more to identify.
DANIEL: This may well be the power of looking beyond typical short-lived lab animals like mice and flies, says Vera Gorbunova. Whales and elephants appear to have much to teach us from their many years on this planet. For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel.
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