Creatures that can live in boiling, toxic water are more than scientific curiosities ? they change the way we do science and medicine.
Archaea, microbes only discovered in the last 30 years in volcanic pools, led to the development of DNA amplification techniques used in forensics and medicine. Now, a radiation-resistant bug may lead to new therapy for people damaged by radiation.
Investigators at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute helped isolate some of the most radiation-resistant organisms known to science.
UMBI?s Dr. Shiladitya DasSarma and colleagues at Idaho State University found quickly mutating types of halobacterium that thrive in salty pools or even dry salt flats subjected to ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
“They have a tremendous survival curve,” DasSarma said. “They all increased their resistance after four rounds of selection.”
That means in just four generations, researchers had halobacteria that could withstand 100 times as much ultraviolet radiation as E. coli, or 2,000 times as much as human tissue can tolerate. The bacteria have developed ways to quickly repair DNA damaged by radiation. DasSharma said if they can understand the bacterium?s repair mechanisms, they may try to use them to help people who have been burned.
