Tag Archives: hyaluronan

Naked mole-rat’s secret to staying cancer free

Recently, a team of researchers from the University of Rochester in New York and the University of Haifa found the naked mole rat’s unique mechanism to staying cancer free- a super sugar called high-molecular-mass Hyaluronan (HMM-HA). They discovered that when secreted from the naked mole rat’s cells, HMM-HA prevents cells from overcrowding and forming tumors. "Contact inhibition, a powerful anticancer mechanism, discovered by the Rochester team, arresting cell growth when cells come into contact with each other, is lost in cancer cells," explains Prof. …