You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Active Tardigrade Index: the measure that describes if Exoplanets could sustain life
These organisms are definitely tough nuts @alex1320. Surviving in space under extreme conditions is one thing, but surviving in exoplanets? Wow!
Who knows a future could soon arrive when the biological make-up of tardigrades could be adopted to genetically enhance human biology. Weird as it may sound, the tardigrades seem to be immortals
(Un)fortunately, in biology we have "model organisms" (mouse, fruit fly, zebrafish...). About them - we know everything. All the other talented outsiders are way much more difficult to work with. Protocols to maintain them are poor, there are no available kits for molecular biology, etc. Unfortunately, I think we will have to wait for decades until something practical emerges, although we have the technology today.
My first bet would be the development of radioprotectants.
You should check out Bob Goldstein's lab at UNC Chapel Hill http://tardigrades.bio.unc.edu/ . His lab is mainly doing C. elegans research but he has some some Tardigrade protocols for DNA isolation and immunostaining and they have shown that RNAi can work on Tardigrades. Cheers!
ian
I know them but you certainly deserved a full upvote for this comment :)