The blind mole rat is notorious for its ability to live in an environment of depleted oxygen.Normally cells so deprived destroy themselves in a process called apoptosis. Blind mole rats, because they live in such environments developed a protein to stop this process. This protein inadvertantly killed the rat's ability to kill cancer cells. Soooo, it developed a chemical called interferon-beta that destroys the cancer cells. Its not slow and insidious like apoptosis, but violent and sudden where the cell releases the chemical and explodes, killing the cancerous cell.
Its a violent world the blind mole rat lives in...both inside and out.
Science news.
1 comment:
The potential side effects of a drug engineered from this could be horrendous BUT if successful it could be an amazing breakthrough. And of course it doesn't change how awesome the blind mole-rat is for even having such a racial ability.
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