As of: February 15, 2024, 7:24 p.m
By: Christoph Gschoßmann
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In Chernobyl, wolves have been roaming the abandoned streets and buildings since the disaster.
Researchers discovered amazing things about them.
Frankfurt – It was probably the largest nuclear disaster that has ever occurred: Chernobyl.
In what was then the Soviet Union, in what is now Ukraine, a nuclear reactor exploded, 100,000 people had to be evacuated, and the surrounding area and, through rain clouds, large parts of Europe were exposed to radioactive radiation.
According to the Chernobyl Forum, around 4,000 people died as a result of the accident.
But not only people, but also flora and fauna had to cope with the radiation.
Wolves stay in the Chernobyl restricted area and develop resistance to cancer
Research from Princeton University in the US has revealed new findings about wolves roaming the deserted streets of Chernobyl.
The animals appear to have developed resistance to cancer over the years.
This in turn raises the hope that the results can help scientists combat the serious disease in humans too.
The damaged Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
© IMAGO/Michael Brochstein
There is still an exclusion zone (CEZ) around Chernobyl.
No one is allowed to enter the 1,000 square mile area precisely because the radiation can cause cancer.
People adhere to it, but animals do not.
Dr.
Cara Love, an evolutionary biologist and ecotoxicologist at the University of New Jersey, has studied how Chernobyl's wolves survive despite being exposed to radioactive particles for generations.
Wolves in Chernobyl are exposed to more than 11.28 millirirs of radiation every day
To do this, Love and a team of researchers visited the exclusion zone in 2014.
They put radio collars on the wolves to track their movements.
This meant the researchers knew how much radiation the animals were exposed to.
Blood samples were also taken.
The result: Chernobyl wolves are exposed to more than 11.28 millirirs of radiation every day throughout their lives - which is more than six times the legal safety limit for a human.
What was interesting was that the wolves' immune systems had changed in a similar way to those of cancer patients who undergo radiation treatment.
More significantly, however, certain parts of the animals' genetic information were identified that appear to withstand an increased risk of cancer.
Research team couldn't return to Chernobyl because of war in Ukraine
Many human studies have found mutations that increase the risk of cancer.
Love's work, however, aims to identify protective mutations that increase the chances of cancer survival.
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However, because of the corona pandemic and the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the researchers were unable to return to the exclusion zone.
The results so far were presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology in Seattle, Washington, USA.
In cancer research, the focus is primarily on mRNA vaccinations.
Several pharmaceutical companies want to bring vaccines onto the market in the coming years.
(cgsc)