Not a new antibiotic, but trying to figure out where a certain family of genes came from. In humans and mice and other mammals, these genes are involved in amplifying the signals when a foreign particle is detected by a single immune cell. In sharks, it would be good enough to show that they are expresed in similar cell types.
We figured out that these genes go back to species as ancient as sharks (and everything in between) but not anything before that (like bacteria, protostomes, even jawless fish like hagfish or even fish like ratfish a close relative of the shark), and now want to see if it expressed in immune cells and organs that generate those cells. I think its interesting that these genes just appeared in sharks, which is coincidentally (or maybe not?) where the true adaptive immune system first appeared. My bet is that some of those genes are going to be restricted to immune cells, but only will be sure when I do the experiments.
In humans, one of these genes has proven to be an extremely effective drug target in treating a variety of human lympoma and leukemias and is also very promising in a variety of auto-immune diseases, so one of my ultimate goals is to identify other related genes that might be of use in other disease conditions. The actual shark work will be part of my background for my thesis, but thats the fun thing about science. You never know where it will lead.
Science = fishing and shark steaks
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Topic: dog fish - any expert shark fishers on board? (Read 4978 times)