Overview
- The Nature paper from a University of Rochester and Albert Einstein College of Medicine team reports markedly enhanced repair of DNA double-strand breaks in Greenland whale cells.
- CIRBP appears at roughly 100-fold higher levels in whale cells than in human cells, standing out among repair factors examined by the authors.
- Transferring whale CIRBP improved genomic stability in human cell cultures and mouse tumors, while genetically modified fruit flies showed modest lifespan gains and better radiation tolerance.
- Whale fibroblasts required fewer engineered oncogenic mutations to transform in vitro than human fibroblasts, pointing to a strategy centered on reliable repair rather than higher damage tolerance.
- The authors propose exploring CIRBP-based approaches and note the protein is cold-inducible, but they stress that translational use remains preliminary and that comparisons relied on fibroblasts rather than common tumor-originating epithelial cells.