The elephant in the room may actually be our path to a cure for cancer, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Researchers at the University of Chicago say they have discovered a so called 'zombie gene' in elephants which come to life to attack cancerous cells.
Dr. Steven Kalter, an oncologist at San Antonio's START Center, says it would be a major revelation in helping researchers discover a way to help our own cells fight cancer, which has been the focus of so called 'targeted therapies' like the drug Keytruda, which was tested at the START Center and is credited with helping former President Jimmy Carter defeat a brain tumor.
"Surprisingly there are these latent genes in elephants that they had assumed were dead and non functional, but came to life during periods of stress, and created products that would destroy the cancer cell," Dr. Kalter said.
The search for a targeted therapy which would do just that has been the 'Holy Grail' of cancer research for decades.
So what are the chances that a similar 'zombie gene' can be found in humans?
"More genes that are perhaps latent, that we can awaken, and destroy cancer cells before they have the chance to destroy us."
But Dr. Kalter says despite the discovery of the 'zombie gene,' that doesn't mean that a cancer cure is imminent.
"One of the cautions they make in the article is, no therapy has yet been developed to unlock these hidden genes," Dr. Kalter said.