Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the University of Iowa have developed a strategy that could help mitigate radiation-induced damage by harnessing a unique protein found in tardigrades, microscopic organisms renowned for their resilience.
Their study entitled, “Radioprotection of healthy tissue via nanoparticle-delivered mRNA encoding for a damage-suppressor protein found in tardigrades,” was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Radiation therapy is a component of treatment plans for about 60% of cancer patients in the United States, but it can cause debilitating side effects. These side effects “can manifest as something as simple as mouth sores, which can limit a person’s ability to eat because it’s so painful, to requiring…