Halmos College Great White Shark Genome Research Heard Around the World

Over the past several weeks, news about a major scientific step to understand the biology of this iconic apex predator and the entire genome of the white shark has now been decoded in detail. Sequence changes were found tied to DNA repair, DNA damage response and DNA damage tolerance, the exact opposite of which – genome instability – is well known to predispose humans to numerous cancers and age-related diseases.

Since this announcement, news outlets from around the world broadcasted this information. By the end of February 2019, over 351 outlets shared this story. From Asia to Europe, Africa to South America, NSU shark research covered the globe. NBC’s Today Show broadcasted live from Halmos College’s Oceanographic Campus.

“Genome instability is a very important issue in many serious human diseases; now we find that nature has developed clever strategies to maintain the stability of genomes in these large-bodied, long-lived sharks,” said Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D., director of NSU’s Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center and Guy Harvey Research Institute. “There’s still so much to be learned from these evolutionary marvels, including information that will potentially be useful to fight cancer and age-related diseases, and improve wound healing treatments in humans, as we uncover how these animals do it.”

For More Information: https://www.nova.edu/massmail/news/great-white-shark-genome-decoded.html