Why Elephants Rarely Get Cancer, Essay Example

The news article was published in the Science News from research organizations on October 8, 2015 at the University of Utah Health Sciences. The research question is why elephants rarely get cancer. The article reports a study that was conducted to analyze the reasons for rare occurrence of cancer in elephants. The results for this were published in JAMA,  Journal of the American Medical Association, and they indicated that, the resistance is based on the presence of 35 extra alleles, or modified genes called p53 which are proteins with identified cancer-inhibiting properties  that are responsible for encoding tumor suppressor. Furthermore, there is a robust mechanism in elephants that facilitates for destruction of the damaged cells that may lead to cancer. This combination of factors is the cause of the improved resistance to cancer in an elephant.

The ability for cancer prevention is therefore figured by nature. Man can make use of the knowledge of adaptation strategies in animals in prevention of cancer and apply it in people. Scientists have attributed elephants to walking conundrums because their number of cells is 100 times more as compared to the number in human beings. This means that, they should be 100 times risk prone to cancer as compared to man. However, they rarely get cancer since their death rates due to cancer is only 5 percent while that of humans is 11-25 percent.

Evolution can be harnessed with constructive results of cancer prevention in humans. Apart from the case of the elephants, the bowhead whales and the naked moles have their approaches that they have evolved in fighting cancer. These knowledge can be ued in the development of strategies for developing cancer ttherapies.