CONAN THE BACTERIUM
Deinococcus radioduransis can survive blasts of gamma radiation 3,000 times the lethal dose for humans.
In 1999, the US Department of Energy funded research to sequence the bacterium’s genome, in the hope of developing waste-consuming microbes to clean extremely contaminated nuclear sites.
Surprisingly, D. radioduransis’s DNA has proved just as susceptible to radiation damage as a regular E.coli. The bacterium’s secret is a set of antioxidants that protect its proteins from radiation damage. These proteins can then rapidly repair damaged DNA.
Last year, researchers showed that a peptide based on these antioxidants could protect mice from usually lethal doses of radiation – a promising first step toward developing an effective radiation recovery pill for humans.