INTEL SOURCE LINK: nationalgeographic.com
Sharks have survived some 400 million years on Earth. Could their longevity be due in part to an extraordinary resistance to cancer and other diseases? If so, humans might someday benefit from the shark’s secrets—but leading researchers caution that today’s popular shark cartilage “cancer cures” aren’t part of the solution. Carl Luer of the MOTE Marine Laboratory’s Center for Shark Research in Sarasota, Florida, has been studying sharks’ cancer resistance for some 25 years. He believes that MOTE research (in cooperation with institutions like Clemson University, The University of South Florida, and Tampa’s H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center) might someday lead to help for humans who suffer from cancer.
“Sharks have a low incidence of disease,” he said, “but unfortunately many of the observations leading to this conclusion are anecdotal. It’s been based on several things. One is that historically, going back to the late 1800s, sharks have been fished commercially and there have been few reports of anything out of the ordinary when removing internal organs or preparing meat for the marketplace.
“Scientists have also been dissecting sharks for years,” he continued, “because many of the basic systems that humans have are found in sharks in simpler form. Most pre-medical students who took comparative anatomy probably dissected dogfish sharks, but you don’t see reports of cancerous tumors.”
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