Could an extremophile hold the secret to treatment of devastating injuries?
Water bear. Moss piglet. Tardigrade. The gentle teddy-bear features of this polyonymic animal belie its hardy nature. Capable of withstanding dehydration and cosmic radiation and surviving temperatures as low as -450 F and as high as 300 F, this eight-limbed microscopic creature holds the key to one of biology’s greatest secrets — extreme survival. Tardigrades have captivated the imagination of astrobiologists — several of the clan’s members have traveled to space as part of research experiments—and tantalized the fantasies of sci-fi fans as a giant alien creature in “Star Trek: Discovery.” Now scientists at Harvard Medical School (HMS) are wondering: Can the physiology of this extremophile yield insights that can be applied to humans? Inspired by nature, optimized in the lab The HMS group, working with colleagues at the University of Washington, Seattle, and MIT, are hoping to answer this very question in an ambitious new project aimed at deciphering the structure and function of several tardigrade proteins...