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December 1, 2009

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Kangaroos could hold key to skin cancer

UNDERSTANDING how kangaroos repair their DNA could be the key to preventing skin cancer, according to Australian and Austrian researchers.

The teams are investigating a DNA repair enzyme found in kangaroos and many other organisms, but not humans, that is effective in fixing a particular type of damage linked to many skin cancers.

The research is led by Dr Linda Feketeova and Dr Uta Wille from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Melbourne, along with scientists from the University of Innsbruck, Austria.

"As summer approaches, excessive exposure to the sun's harmful UV light will see more than 400,000 Australians diagnosed with skin cancer," Feketeova said.

"Other research teams have proposed a 'dream cream' containing the DNA repair enzyme which you could slap on your skin after a day in the sun. We are now examining whether this would be feasible."

The groups are simulating kangaroo skin's exposure to harmful ultraviolet light in the laboratory, and then analyzing the DNA repair process, which Wille said resulted in a number of chemical by-products not seen before.

 

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