As of: February 13, 2024, 1:49 p.m
By: Christoph Gschoßmann
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Despite high levels of radiation, wolves survive in Chernobyl – thanks to their resistance to cancer.
Their genetic mutations could open up new avenues for medicine.
Chernobyl – The largest nuclear disaster the world has ever experienced occurred in Chernobyl.
A nuclear reactor in what was then the Soviet Union, now Ukraine, exploded in April 1986, forcing 100,000 people to evacuate.
The surrounding area and, through radioactive rain clouds, large parts of Europe were exposed to radiation.
The Chernobyl Forum estimates that around 4,000 people died as a result of the accident.
But not only people, but also plants and animals had to deal with radiation.
New insights into the wolves roaming the deserted streets of Chernobyl have now been discovered through research at Princeton University in the US.
It seems as if the animals have developed a resistance to cancer over the years.
This gives rise to hope that the results of the research can help combat this serious disease in humans.
Mutated wolves in Chernobyl astonish research team – hope for cancer research?
The exclusion zone around Chernobyl (CEZ) still exists.
The 1,000 square mile area is not allowed to enter due to the risk of cancer from radiation.
People comply, but animals do not.
Dr.
Cara Love, an evolutionary biologist and ecotoxicologist at the University of New Jersey, has studied how Chernobyl's wolves are able to survive despite being exposed to radioactive particles for generations.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
There was an explosion in reactor 4 here in April 1986. (archive image) © Bridgeman Images/Imago
Love and her research team visited the exclusion zone in 2014. They fitted the wolves with radio collars to track their movements and determine how much radiation the animals were exposed to.
Blood samples were also taken.
Results of the study in Ukraine: Protective mutations in the exclusion zone
The results, presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology in Seattle, Washington, showed that Chernobyl wolves are exposed to more than 11.28 millirems of radiation daily throughout their lives.
That's more than six times the legal safety limit for a human.
What is noteworthy is that the wolves' immune systems show similar changes to those of cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy.
More importantly, certain parts of the animals' genetic information have been identified that appear to be able to withstand an increased risk of cancer.
Some human studies have discovered mutations that increase the risk of cancer.
But Love's work is focused on identifying protective mutations that could increase cancer survival rates.
In cancer research, the focus is currently on mRNA vaccinations.
Several pharmaceutical companies plan to bring vaccines to market in the next few years.
As far as mutation research is concerned, the researchers were unable to return to the exclusion zone first because of the corona pandemic and then because of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
(cgsc)
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