Monday, October 10, 2011

Sharks' Virus Killer Could Cure Humans, Study Suggests

BY DAVID DUNCAN


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/09/110919-sharks-drugs-medicine-viruses-science-health-squalamine/

Dogfish sharks ply the Pacific Ocean off Canada.
Photograph by Jurgen Freund, Getty Images


29 comments:

Will said...

This article is very interesting in the medical aspect. The diseases that were mentioned in the article are hard and expensive to treat, but this study might discover an easy and cost-effective way to cure them.

Edie said...

I was wondering why scientists only just recently found squalamine. It would be great to have that be a cure for humans now. How are they going to get the squalamine out of the sharks so that we can use it as a cure for diseases and sicknesses? Also, I was wondering if squalamine came from a latin word.

Emory said...

Sharks are known as predatory animals. Who knew that they could help you? It's cool that squalamine from sharks can be better than drugs that help you fight diseases.

SAMAR THE AWSOME HAS said...

This is really cool because it is a pretty rear shark.

samAR THE AWSOME HAS said...

I love this website because you can do lots.

Nicholas said...

How do people extract the squalamine? Do they have to kill the sharks? Or do they extract through a syringe? If people kill sharks for the squalamine, a large number of sharks would die. In my opinion, it wouldn't be fair to the shark.

Sofia said...

This was an interesting article. I never knew that they can help you.

Sofia said...

This was an interesting article. I never knew that they can help you.

Sofia said...

Sorry. I published it twice.

Anthony said...

Wow! This is a breakthrough in the field of medicine. It is amazing that humans have not discovered squalamine for many years. It would be amazing if the drug/chemical actually helps in the battle against disease. As Will mentioned, the diseases are very costly and expensive, but this will help a lot. The big problem though is how to get the squalamine out of the shark. I mean if it cost a shark's life, I might have second thoughts about using this. Overall, I think that a shark's life is just as important as a human's and we should find a way to extract the squalamine safely.

Robert said...

I am very glad that their are cheaper and more effective ways for medicine, but this is just awesome. I mean so many diseases cured because of sharks.

Alex G. said...

I think it is really cool that predatory animals can cure diseases. I would have never thought that squalamine could cure better than drugs. Maybe now people will not be as afraid of sharks knowing they could actually help us. But, I had one question, I would like to know how they get the squalamine out of sharks.

Sinclaire said...

That article was so interesting! I never knew that sharks could help us fight diseases! Like Edie, I wonder how they would get squalamine out of sharks. I hope they don't have to kill sharks to get to the squalamine.

Caroline said...

This is quite interesting. I wonder if they have tested this on humans. It would be very cool if they could, and it would be a break through. Some of those diseases I saw I though were very hard to cure as it said in the article. I agree with Edie that it would be hard to get squalamine out of sharks without killing them which is a very bad thing to do, but maybe we could find it elsewhere.

Kevin said...

I am surprised that scientists haven't found this before now. This is also a HUGE step forward in the field of medical science. However, I am concerned about how scientists are going to extract the squalamine. Kill the shark? Definitely not. Through a syringe? Sure! Why not? Also, this would be very cheap and less energy-consuming than our high-tech things that we have these days.

Gwen said...

That's so interesting! I wonder if there's any long term side effects to using squalamine to cure sicknesses, and if so, would having those side effects be worth being cured from a disease that wasn't life threatening?

Jordan said...

I agree with Anthony. Even though that we can be healed by using the sharks squalamine, I does not mean we can just kill the sharks. Scientists should do more reaserch and find a way to remove it safely.

Also if less people die because the shark's squalamine, people will dominate the earth, (it's not like they don't already) and we will need to kill more sharks for their other reacorses.

Actually, I don't even know if sharks have other purposes. I think they have to have other purposes. Everything in life serves a purpose, except maybye me. My purpose is to annoy people.

Emma said...

I think that it is great that squalamine can fight and even cure diseases. I think that squalamine might help many people in the future. The fact that squalamine has been around for so long but scientists just discovered it recently just goes to show that there is still so much in the world that is unknown to us. But it is so wonderful that squalamine's benefits have been discovered.

David said...

Sharks have survived on earth for 700 million years, so they are highly evolved animals. They are immune to all viruses which cause serious diseases in humans. Viruses are extremely hard to fight. We can learn a lot from continuing to study sharks, maybe even learn how to cure cancer. I want to point out that squalamine has been synthesized in the laboratory since 1995, so no sharks are harmed. Also, squalamine is already being used in human clinical trials for cancer and eye disorders.

Alaman said...

I think it is interesting how something that so many people are afraid of can save us from different diseases, that thing being the sharks.

Ryan said...

This is a very interesting article. I find it interesting that squalamine is attached to the cell membrane, and that it is more helpful then drugs.

Colin said...

I found this very interesting. I never knew about squalamine and how it can cure humans.

Jacob said...

I think that that is very cool because lately people have been getting sick with diseases, and to treat one that would help people a lot. I also think that it is weird because another animals tissue/ skin.

Jacob said...

This is a really interesting article

Molly said...

I think that this is really interesting. Actually, to everyone who wants to know how they get the squalamine out of the sharks, they can synthesize it in laboratories so they don't have to kill any sharks. It would be so cool if they could find a way to put this in human genes so that the next generation would be born with squalamine in their immune systems.

Luca said...

This is interesting because this Squalamine substance might be able to cure cancer. Although wouldn't we have to kill sharks to get it? That's kind of sad.

Caroline said...

Wow, they can make squalamine in a lab? Thanks for letting me know Molly! It's good that they don't have to kill sharks to get the squalamine!

Samantha said...

I thought that it was fascinating that scientists found squalamine, inside of a shark, can cure some diseases that are caused by viruses. Further, I like that scientists can reproduce the squalamine in a lab so that we don't have to kill too many sharks. I wonder if cycads, cockroaches, tortoises, or any other animal or plant that has been around for a long time could cure diseases.

Samantha said...

I would never have thought that sharks would save people. Think, they have been holding that secret of squalamine inside of them for 700 million years.