The human body is not capable of curing cancer on its own. What’s more shocking is that our bodies are becoming tolerant to several antibiotics. Therefore, struggling to fight even bacterial and viral infections.
Researchers at Bigelow Laboratory of Ocean Sciences claim that mimicking oyster’s defense mechanism in humans could help fight cancer. Thus, the findings form basis for future of pharmaceutical industries and medical science.
Understanding the Genome of Oyster Key for Research
Oysters fight bacterial and viral infections with producing antibodies. Antibodies are proteins that fight against foreign bodies. Similarly, they fight against cancer cells without antibodies. As a result, this interests scientists to understand the reason behind the reaction. If they succeed they will be able to give direction for developing drugs to cure cancer.
Scientists are currently developing molecular tools to understand the genetic sequence of oysters. So far, Fernandez Robeldo has found that oyster’s genome has 28,027 genes. However, the team is unaware of the exact function of each gene. They are working on developing genetic tools that will help them understand the phenome of oysters.
Meanwhile, Adrienne Tracy who is part of the team was able to insert a gene into the blood cells of oysters. Moreover, Robeldo is developing an oyster cell culture that will help scientists across the globe work on uniform gene sequence. As a result, this will allow them to study and compare results of similar research all over the world.
Further, scientists also claim that it could also help farmers in the shellfish aquaculture industry. They can grow oysters with specific characteristics like rapid growth and strong shell. Oysters are healthy to eat. That is why scientists believe that future studies in this area hold importance.
