{"id":87978,"date":"2019-02-19T12:02:12","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T20:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/searching-tardigrades-for-lifesaving-secrets"},"modified":"2019-02-19T12:02:12","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T20:02:12","slug":"searching-tardigrades-for-lifesaving-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/searching-tardigrades-for-lifesaving-secrets","title":{"rendered":"Searching Tardigrades for Lifesaving Secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/searching-tardigrades-for-lifesaving-secrets2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are many instances in medicine when it would be helpful to stop, or greatly slow down, time. Doing so could spare a limb from amputation, prevent paralysis after a stroke or save your life following a heart attack.<\/p>\n<p>Across the tree of life, there are many organisms that can essentially cheat time by decelerating their biology. Chief among them is the <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/09\/08\/science\/the-tardigrade-water-bear.html?module=inline\" title=\"\">tardigrade<\/a>, a creature no bigger than a speck of sand that can survive severe temperatures and pressures, <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/current-biology\/fulltext\/S0960-9822(08)00805-1\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">outer space<\/a> and <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-017-05796-x\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">all sorts of apocalyptic scenarios<\/a> by entering a dormant state called anhydrobiosis.<\/p>\n<p>A team at Harvard Medical School is studying tardigrades <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/hms.harvard.edu\/news\/master-survival\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">in hopes of finding medical treatments that halt tissue damage<\/a>. In particular, the scientists are drawing inspiration from <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/03\/16\/science\/tardigrades-water-bears-dried-out.html?module=inline\" title=\"\">special proteins<\/a> suspected to help tardigrades achieve suspended animation. They aim to synthesize a version of these proteins that can enter human cells and pause processes leading to cell death.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/02\/15\/health\/tardigrades-suspended-animation.html\">https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/02\/15\/health\/tardigrades-suspended-animation.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are many instances in medicine when it would be helpful to stop, or greatly slow down, time. Doing so could spare a limb from amputation, prevent paralysis after a stroke or save your life following a heart attack. Across the tree of life, there are many organisms that can essentially cheat time by decelerating [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}