Individuals with superhero DNA walk among us. Scientists have discovered that there are 13 people around the world with the ability to cancel out diseases. However, the experts have yet to find out their secret identities.
Experts at the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai Hospital launched the Resilience Project in 2014 and crowd-sourced the samples of the DNA. "Most genomic studies focus on finding the cause of a disease, but we see tremendous opportunity in figuring out what keeps people healthy," said study author Dr. Eric Schadt, via BBC. Their study was published in full in Nature Biotechnology.
What are these genetic diseases?
Researchers analyzed 589,306 genomes and learned that 13 adults were able to resist eight types of "severe Mendalian conditions," per Spring Nature. These adults reported no symptoms that are common in a condition like cystic fibrosis. The experts concluded that their genes kept them from being sick and labeled their samples as "Superhero DNA."
Schadt's team hypothesizes that these 13 individuals could hold the key to fighting the diseases. Aside from cystic fibrosis, these Mendalian conditions include:
- Pfeiffer syndrome
- familial dysautonomia
- acampomelic campomelic dysplasia
- Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome
- epidermolysis bullosa simplex
- atelosteogenesis
- autoimmune polyendocrinopathy syndrome
Who are these people with Superhero DNA?
The scientists would like to identify who are these 13 individuals, but doing so might prove challenging since it is protocol to keep the DNA database anonymous, per NHS. For now, the researchers cannot fact-check their results since there is no way to contact the individuals to do more studies. They signed the consent forms without providing any information about themselves.
The dilemma highlights what genome experts should be doing all along. "The value of any project becomes exponentially greater when informed consent policies allow other scientists to reach out to the original study participants," Professor Stephen Friend of the Resilience Project said, via Daily Mail.
The researchers intend to do a broader study next, with a better policy about consents from participants in that they should be willing and open to share their data and results to the world. Watch Friend talk about Superhero DNA in the video below:
