Elephants have 100x as many cells as a human does, live about as long, but have ... | Hacker News

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		pfdietz on March 17, 2023 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Prostate cancer could be treated by destroying tum... Elephants have 100x as many cells as a human does, live about as long, but have about 1/2 the chance of dying of cancer. Why? A big part is that each elephant cell has ~40 copies of the p53 gene.

hawk_ on March 17, 2023 [–]

Before anyone thinks of increasing p53 in human bodies to prevent cancer keep in mind that it can cause premature aging.

pfdietz on March 17, 2023 | [–]

I'm sure elephants have all sorts of compensatory mutations so they can live with so many copies of the gene.

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