The Naked Mole-rat: Blind and Naked but Oh So Cool!

2019-08-13

Introduction

Naked mole-rats are cool-blooded subterranean rats that live in Africa, that has a big family and liberty for over 30 years. Studying naked mole-rats today can help us find a way to treat cancer and strokes.

Reflection

Naked mole-rats are very interesting, because they have nothing like other mole-rats that are relative to them. They can live over 30 years while mice can only live for 2-3 years. Naked mole-rats protein making machinery makes 40% less mistakes than mice, that is the reason why they will never have cancer. Naked mole-rats can live in a low-oxygen environment for a long time without no damage to their brain.

Discussion

Once we figure out what happens when mole-rats’ DNA replication, transcription and translation, we can find a way to deal with cancer. Understanding how it works when mole-rats are in a hypoxia can help us to cure strokes even prevent strokes.

Conclusion & Application

Dr. Ewan Smith gave us the lecture, and he told us that there were few people were doing mole-rat thing, because they are too difficult to take care of. I think that besides knowledge we must have passion when we study or research or do something else.