Scientists Make Mice Immune to Radiation

Dr. Isenberg and his team made the discovery that by switching off a related inhibitory pathway that controls nitric oxide, they could give animals “near immunity to record levels of radiation,” he says.

In mice, when Dr. Isenberg and his team introduced a drug that prevented a protein, thrombospondin-1, from binding to a surface cell receptor called CD47, the animals could endure almost unheard-of doses of radiation with virtually no ill effects.

Perhaps equally exciting, Dr. Isenberg and his team found that while his technique protected healthy cells from damage, it actually increased the effectiveness of radiation treatments on cancer cells.

- read the full article by Brendon Nafziger on DotMed