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Whales don't get cancer: How bowhead whale DNA could change human health · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Imagine a creature that lives for more than 200 years and weighs as much as a
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  small airplane, yet it rarely gets cancer.
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  That creature is the bowhead whale.
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  A lot of its population lives in the Arctic, just in Canada.
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  And today I'm gonna walk you through recent genetic research that shows
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  how it's this marine giant maintains its genome across centuries.
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  Remember this animal can last or be as much as 200 years old and what
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  that might mean for cancer research, aging and ocean connected health.
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  And what if we could borrow one of its cellular tricks to protect human cells?
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  We're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  Let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody.
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  Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, marine biologist and science communicator,
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  and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the
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  ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live
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  for a better ocean by taking action.
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  And if you don't know, this podcast is part of the Speak up for Blue.
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  Podcast Network.
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  We podcast with a purpose and that purpose is ocean conservation.
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  Everything you listen to on this podcast network, the How to Protect the Ocean
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  Podcast, the Beyond Jaws podcast is all about increasing your ocean awareness,
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  your ocean knowledge, and helping habitats, and that's what we're doing
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  in a new project where I launched
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  a campaign to raise funds to launch a Seagrass podcast.
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  You're like, Andrew, why?
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  Why in the heck would you want to launch a Seagrass podcast?
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  Nobody knows anything about Seagrass.
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  Exactly.
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  We're gonna learn about Seagrass Meadows.
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  It's research, conservation, and restoration projects that
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  are going on around the world.
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  And when you listen to it and if you contribute to funding this launch,
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  then you get to be a part of restoring seagrass Meadows somewhere in the world.
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  And we'll be documenting it throughout this podcast journey on the
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  Seagrass Effect, a seagrass podcast.
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  If you want to help fund this launch, you can go to speak up for blue.com/.
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  Seagrass, that's speak up for blue.com/seagrass.
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  And let's get back into the show.
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  But it's a really great project, something that I'm very, very dear to me.
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  So if you wanna support me in any kind of way, you can do it that way.
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  We'll have other ways you can support as well in the future, but
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  this is the way to support now.
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  and I wanna thank you for doing that.
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  Let's get back into this exciting research.
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  cancer is one hell of a disease.
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  Nobody wants to see that happen.
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  I watched my dad go through it.
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  I watched him unfortunately pass away from it.
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  It is the most heartbreaking thing you can do because the
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  treatment for cancer, is horrible.
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  You get chemotherapy, radiotherapy, it breaks down your cells, it
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  breaks down muscles in your body.
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  You get weak.
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  You feel like crap.
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  It is not fun.
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  So imagine, imagine if there's a way that we can treat cancer in a better
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  way that will help not only get rid of cancer, but also repair the body
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  cells that are overcome by tumors.
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  That is the possibility of this research coming out of nature in 2025, where
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  they talked about bowhead whales, one of the oldest living beings and one of the
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  heaviest living animals on the planet.
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  It lives for up to 200 years or greater than 200 years.
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  It can weigh 80,000 kilos.
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  That's 80,000 kilos.
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  That's insane.
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  And so, you know, we're fascinated by the size, the great size, and the long life.
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  So logically you would think.
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  Longer life, bigger size.
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  A lot of cells, you would get more cancer, there'd be a higher
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  cancer risk, but yet they don't.
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  There's a thing called Petos Paradox.
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  I think I'm pronouncing it properly, PETO paradox.
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  And in that it says, look, if you have a higher body size, you live longer,
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  your cells are gonna mutate, your cells are gonna change and they're gonna break
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  and they're not gonna be able to repair.
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  And so tumors are gonna be able to get on that, and you're
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  gonna have a higher cancer risk.
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  That's not the best.
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  So how do they go almost cancer free for their entire lives?
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  And this is what's kind of cool about it.
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  The evidence for improved DNA repair in long-lived bowhead
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  whales is the actual title of the study that came out in nature.
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  Okay, so let's break it down.
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  Here's what happens.
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  Essentially you have a DNA strand, a number of like millions and billions
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  and billions of DNA strands in your body that gives you the characteristics
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  of your body that you have.
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  So it gives you eye color, hair color, what your body's gonna look like, how
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  your muscles are built, how your body's gonna feel, the diseases that you
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  might get, so on and so on and so on.
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  And as you get older, those cells start to break, right?
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  They start to mutate.
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  And those mutations in the human body could cause cancer in the future.
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  So as you get older and your body and your cells start to break in your DNA,
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  which is a double helix, starts to break other cells like tumor cells come
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  in and start to repair that or start to bind to that, and you get these
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  tumorous cells, which can cause cancer.
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  But a bowhead whale that lives 200 years old and is very,
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  very large, 80,000 kilograms.
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  Well now you're talking about a body that should have a lot of
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  cancer in it, but it doesn't.
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  And the reason why it doesn't is because when the cell breaks at some point,
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  and the DNA, the helix molecule breaks.
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  It has proteins that promotes the repair, the accurate repair of this double helix.
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  So if it was just a single helix, it would probably repair
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  a lot faster, even in humans.
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  But because it's double helix and it twists, it has to come
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  together pretty accurately and that's what makes the repair.
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  So having this excess of this protein and sort of low mutation rates
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  within the fibroblasts of the cell.
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  These things will induce a lifetime where you don't have cancer.
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  And the fact that they can repair is making it a lot better 'cause the
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  tumor cells can't, you know, bind into these damaged cells over that time.
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  So this is something that is pretty cool when you see in marine mammals
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  and the fact that we are mammals and we could maybe have something similar.
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  What are the implications for cancer research?
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  So for humans, cancer prevention is partly about preventing or repairing the DNA
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  damage and the bowhead data suggests boosting repair fidelity, like that
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  actually boosting that repair might be a complimentary path to tumor suppression.
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  Instead of just trying to kill all the cells that are the tumor cells, you want
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  to be able to promote the regeneration and the accurate repair, and actually as
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  you promote the repair, you suppress all the tumor cells, which is kind of cool.
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  So the application, which is kind of cool, is that research into this
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  protein, you can have gene therapy and small molecule activators.
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  There are biomarker developments for genomic stability, so making
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  sure that you get more stable genomes and has insights into aging.
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  So less mutation accumulation could make it a healthier lifespan.
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  So maybe even lengthening our lives just a little bit longer,
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  which could be good, could be bad.
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  I don't know what that's gonna look like in the future.
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  but the fact that if we get cancer, avoid the long-term effects of cancer
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  and the treatments that we have to face like chemotherapy and radiation, which
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  is what is effective now to kill the cancer cells by being able to promote
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  the repair of those damaged cells.
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  And suppress those tumors can be really great for cancer research
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  and cancer patients in the future.
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  Now the fact that we got to learn about these bowhead whales shows that
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  we need to promote more research, not just studying bowhead whales, but
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  studying the environment in general.
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  We know how many things that we've benefited off of nature, but we don't know
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  the things that we don't know already.
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  And if we stop doing research, if we stop funding research that looks at
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  the genomes of bowhead whales or why certain whales get less cancer or certain
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  sharks get less cancer than others we'll be a lot slower at preventing
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  diseases like cancer in the future.
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  There are times like at one point I hope that cancer will be one of those
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  things like, yeah, remember people used to die of cancer like quite a bit.
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  Hopefully in the future it'll just be like, yeah, now we just have
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  this gene therapy that we can cure this cancer and people can live
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  longer, which would be great to see less suffering from people who have
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  unfortunately had passed away, including my dad, have passed away of cancer.
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  Like I said before, it's not something that you wanna see anybody go through.
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  It's a horrible, horrible disease.
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  And the treatment, It is terrible to watch somebody go through that.
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  And so by funding cancer research or funding environmental research and
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  looking at the genomes of certain animals, we could look at the secrets
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  of how specific animals avoid cancer, like large marine mammals that are
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  long lived, how they can avoid having cancer and live for such a long time.
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  And healthy, you know, I think that's something that would be really great.
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  But we have to fund this research.
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  We have to understand that keeping species around, not just for the
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  stability of habitats and the stability of what we love and know about the ocean
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  in terms stability of fisheries, if they're managed right, stability of
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  the coastal system and security of a coastal system, so no eroding and less
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  floods, all that kind of stuff, really
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  helps us, you know, live longer lives and healthier lives and not have to
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  worry about dying from floods or being affected by floods, or even just loss of
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  economic viability in terms of fisheries, in terms of tourism and so forth.
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  When you see a habitat just go by the wayside, because we're losing
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  that diversity, we're losing that stability within each habitat.
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  So funding research that protects biodiversity, not only helps in securing
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  our coastlines and also offering a lot of economic benefits, but also having
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  health benefits by discovering more about these species as we learn more and more.
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  Funding science is important.
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  Funding conservation is important, and understanding these animals
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  is really important to our own health as we can see here.
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  Hopefully in the future, this is something that we can benefit from and see less
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  cancer patients in the future or even have better therapy for those cancer patients
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  and get better as soon as possible.
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  Bowhead whales teach us about DNA repair and longevity.
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  That's cool.
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  It's a potential for human cancer research, which is even better.
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  But so much work needs to happen and that funding needs to happen.
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  So when we see governments stop funding on environmental research or stop
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  funding conservation or stop funding just regular management of oceans or lands.
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  That's not good.
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  That can affect our health in the future, our longevity as a human species of
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  course, but also individually our health.
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  just coming from like a health perspective.
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  I think that's something that's really interesting.
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  Now, what can you do about this?
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  What is the call to action?
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  One, you can support research like this by liking and subscribing to this video
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  to support the spread of this research.
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  Let's increase our knowledge about what we know about the ocean, about its
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  animals and how it can help us as well.
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  Of course, we're not just doing it to help us, but it's a benefit that the more
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  we know about these animals, the more we can apply it to us as a human species.
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  But the other thing is too, is support
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  research, support graduate students, support doctors and support facilities
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  that does this type of research, and be able to find cures for things like cancer,
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  for the vaccinations, for things like, we've done in the past and polio and
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  measles and things like that to decrease
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  the diseases that affect our health.
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  That's what's really important when it comes into learning about the ocean.
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  I think that's something that's really, really cool and something
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  that we need to look at.
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  Now, something that we need to also look at is that this is not something
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  that is going to be a cure for cancer anytime soon, like tomorrow.
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  We need to be cautious about certain things.
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  So most of this work that's done is done in fibroblasts, which
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  is connective tissue cells.
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  Cancer in humans often arises in epithelial cells, so like skin cells.
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  We don't know yet what whale epithelial cells behave.
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  We don't know how they behave.
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  and if it's identical to the way humans epithelial cells or if the
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  cells repair just like the ones in the fibroblasts and the connective tissue.
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  And then translating that whale repair machinery to humans will face
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  many, many challenges, right?
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  Different physiology, different lifespans, evolutionary distance.
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  There's a lot of things that are different between our bodies and marine mammal
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  bodies, obviously, and so that it might be a little different in the way it applies.
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  And over repair is not always benign, so there may be trade-offs, for example.
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  Too much repair could affect like cell cycle regulation,
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  tissue turnover, et cetera.
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  There's a lot of things that can go wrong.
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  Researchers caution about optimizing DNA repair without unintended consequences.
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  So like we can't just go and say, Hey, this is how we repair DNA.
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  This is gonna be perfect for curing cancer, but it might lead to other things
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  that we have to worry about in the future.
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  And then of course, longevity is multifactorial.
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  It's not always just with the repair of DNA, you repair one
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  piece, but environment, metabolism, reproduction predation, and other
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  life history traits also matters.
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  So it all depends.
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  Like whales are huge.
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  They may not come up against apex predators, like orcas all the time, right?
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  There's always changes that can happen.
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  So that's something that we have to be careful of when we're looking at this.
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  So it's just some things to be cautious about.
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  Obviously I'm gonna be cautiously optimistic about this research.
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  It's very dear to me.
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  I'd love to see people not have to suffer from cancer.
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  Obviously.
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  I'm sure you do the same thing ' cause it affects everybody all over the world and
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  it's something that we want to stamp out.
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  So, that's all I have to say.
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  That's all I got for today's episode.
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  I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
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  Let me know in the comments below if you're watching this on YouTube.
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  If you are listening to this on your favorite podcast app, just hit me
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  up on how to protect the ocean on Instagram at how to protect the ocean.
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  And of course, if you want to contact me through my email, you can go
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  to speak up for blue.com/contact and you can get ahold of me there.
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  I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  From the true Nordstrom and free.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time in Happy Conservation.