Sharks are resilient creatures with the ability to recover fast from injuries thanks to chemical compounds found in their skin. These compounds, it turns out, could have benefits for us too.
Researchers in dermatology at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden realized this after subjecting the spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) and other cartilaginous fish species to tests to understand the unique biochemistry of their skin.
Unlike most fish species with relatively smooth skin covered in a thick, slimy layer of mucus, sharks have rough skin, which feels like sandpaper, the scientists note.
“Much more is known about fish biology than shark biology, for obvious reasons,” explains Jakob Wikström, an associate professor of dermatology and an author of a new study. “Fish are easier to handle, and there’s a bigger commercial interest in them.”
Wikström and his colleagues discovered that a thin mucus layer on shark skin is chemically different from that of bony fish as it is much less acidic.
“They’re not just another fish swimming around. They have a unique biology, and there are probably lots of human biomedical applications that one could derive from that. For example, when it comes to mucin [a primary component of the mucus], one can imagine different wound care topical treatments that could be developed from that,” Wikström says,
Already products for treating wounds have been derived from codfish, but “I think it’s possible that one could make something similar from sharks,” the scientist stresses. “Animals that are far away [from us] evolutionarily can still give us very important information that is relevant for humans.”
Previous research by other scientists has for instance led to the development of a new antibiotic derived from sharks. Yet even aside from their potetial use to us in the form of biomedicine, sharks should be studied for their own sake so we can better understand these unique creatures.
At the same time, we should tread carefully in ascribing medicinal properties wholesale to sharks and other animals as it is widely done in traditional Chinese medicine where shark fins are prized both as medicine and as delicacies consumed in a soup.
This belief has been driving the extinction of sharks worldwide with great numbers of them being caught for their fins each year. The sooner this practice stops the better it will be both for us and sharks.
