MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – When you think of saving lives, sharks don’t usually come to mind. But at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, students and faculty are learning from sharks every day, and that’s leading to advances in cancer research.
Six male nurse sharks live in an aquarium in a research lab on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. The shark, which originally lived in the Florida Keys, was relocated to Wisconsin to help humans fight cancer.
“It’s nice to be able to say I’m working with them,” said Jayden West, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
West said he has been working with the shark since it was brought to campus about three years ago.
“This is definitely one of the coolest animals available in this field, and it’s not the kind of animal that someone who isn’t a wildlife biologist by trade would expect,” he says.
West is researching drug delivery mechanisms for cancer with the help of sharks.
“Using these shark antibodies, we can transport these drugs to the tumor and reduce the transport of the drugs into the body, thereby mitigating to some extent many of the negative effects of chemotherapy,” he said. Ta.
Dr. Aaron LeBeau, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and radiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says sharks are immune to many types of human cancer.
“We harness their immune systems to produce antibodies and use them to fight different types of cancer,” he said.
Cancers ranging from breast cancer to prostate cancer to melanoma to lung cancer.
“It’s the same as getting a COVID-19 jab or a flu vaccine,” LeBeau said. “You simply inject it under the skin of a shark, and over time the shark’s immune system mounts an immune response to that protein and produces antibodies against that protein.”
From there, blood is collected from the shark and analyzed in a lab. But at the same time, both undergraduate and graduate students can learn from LeBeau and the Sharks.
“We were able to bring so many people together and use the sharks as kind of a focal point to focus our cancer treatment efforts,” West said.
Research on sharks over the past three years has been “very successful,” LeBeau said.
“We are making new discoveries every day,” he said. “This is the only laboratory of its kind in the world developing shark antibody therapies for cancer.”
The results of these studies are being used to advance the UW Carbone Cancer Center.
“It’s really great to see people who have always been passionate about cancer in general doing something that’s cutting edge and so much fun,” West added.
LeBeau added that sharks have identified several antibodies against COVID-19, and that they have antibodies that work against all variants of the coronavirus. They are also using sharks to generate antibodies against proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease.
“We have also developed antibodies against fentanyl,” LeBeau added.
LeaBeau says there are currently interesting projects underway in both lung and breast cancer, and he hopes to have the results ready for clinical trials within five years.
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