As the “guardian of the genome,” protein p53 can stop damaged cells from becoming cancer. Now scientists want to use p53 to treat the disease. Doing so involves a lesson from the skillful spider.

Cancer is one of the world’s most common and devastating diseases. It causes abnormal cells to grow and divide uncontrollably. Each year, 1.6 million people receive a cancer diagnosis.

How the body’s immune system responds to cancer is an important research area. P53 plays a key role in that response.

Essentially, p53 shuts down cells if it detects damage that could cause cells to grow into tumors. Yet in up to 60% of all cancers, p53 is missing or damaged.

Scientists now realize p53 problems are the most common shared feature across all human cancers. They decided to introduce the protein into cancer cells as a way of treating the disease.

But doing so is complicated. First, p53 is a fairly large and floppy protein. Cells don’t produce large amounts of it. Not only that, but the protein also clumps together, stops working easily, and breaks down quickly.

To find a possible solution to the challenges associated with p53, scientists examined similar proteins in the natural world.

Researchers found that spider silk proteins are similar to p53. (For more spidey innovations, see Spider Web Inspires Surgical Tape.) That is, they’re large, floppy, and easily “clumpable.” But unlike p53, spider silk proteins contain a small, compact part called a domain. The domain seems to keep the protein stable—so it doesn’t change or break down.

But the domain on the spider silk proteins does more than that. When attached to human p53—creating a “fusion protein”—the domains helped the cells produce large amounts of p53.

Scientists then tested the fusion protein in cancer cells. It made p53 even more powerful in shutting the cancer down!

The findings reported by researcher Michael Landreh of the Karolinska Institute and other scientists aren’t a new cancer therapy. However, they do open up fresh possibilities. Landreh and others hope to design ways to make p53 easier for cells to produce. This could include modifying spider silk domains to further increase cells’ ability to generate p53.

Future plans include testing how well healthy human cells tolerate spider silk proteins—and whether adding them extends the life of mutation-fighting p53. If spiders become part of a cancer cure, even arachnophobes could become fans.

Why? God’s resources are vast and unfathomable. Just imagine the untapped wealth of His creation, where even spider silk has healing properties!