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We actually know that elephants have extra systems for controlling cancer and we haven't really looked carefully [1]. We have also learned a little about these

We actually know that elephants have extra systems for controlling cancer and we haven't really looked carefully [1]. We have also learned a little about these systems in bowhead whales [2]. I think we are a bit further along with understanding cancer (we haven't found a major oncogene in a while), but I do agree we still have a way to go, especially on the treatment/prevention front. 1. https://www.nature.com/news/how-elephants-avoid-cancer-1.18534 https://www.nature.com/news/how-elephants-avoid-cancer-1.185... 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4536333/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4536333/

nonbel 9y ago
This is still wild speculation. "Elephants live a long time and have multiple copies of p53" (these retrotransposed copies so they are under different promoters, missing introns, etc ...) does not equate to what you said. Look at all the functions for p53 on the right of this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP53 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP53 It is not difficult at all to look at a genome and find some pattern that you can weave a plausible story around. Also, here are the conclusions of your two papers: >"To our knowledge, this study offers the first supporting evidence based on empirical data that larger animals with longer life spans may develop less cancer, especially elephants. [...] Compared with other mammalian species, elephants appeared to have a lower-than-expected rate of cancer, potentially related to multiple copies of TP53." >"The genetic and molecular mechanisms by which longevity evolves remain largely unexplained" Now consider how simplistic the idea behind these studies is: "Elephants/whales live a long time and are rarely observed to get cancer relative to humans, we should look into why". Investigation of the most basic aspects of the problem has only begun a few years ago...

nonbel 9y ago

This is still wild speculation. "Elephants live a long time and have multiple copies of p53" (these retrotransposed copies so they are under different promoters, missing introns, etc ...) does not equate to what you said. Look at all the functions for p53 on the right of this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP53 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP53 It is not difficult at all to look at a genome and find some pattern that you can weave a plausible story around. Also, here are the conclusions of your two papers: >"To our knowledge, this study offers the first supporting evidence based on empirical data that larger animals with longer life spans may develop less cancer, especially elephants. [...] Compared with other mammalian species, elephants appeared to have a lower-than-expected rate of cancer, potentially related to multiple copies of TP53." >"The genetic and molecular mechanisms by which longevity evolves remain largely unexplained" Now consider how simplistic the idea behind these studies is: "Elephants/whales live a long time and are rarely observed to get cancer relative to humans, we should look into why". Investigation of the most basic aspects of the problem has only begun a few years ago...