By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times
SARASOTA — Scientist Carl Luer has spent most of his life studying an animal humans inherently fear: sharks.
The predators of the sea have been the villains of thriller tales since the 1974 novel, JawsThey’ve invaded the streets of Los Angeles in the cult classic Sharknado movies.
But Luer, a senior researcher at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota, discovered they have more to offer than farfetched story lines. Sharks, it turns out, could hold the key to a promising new cancer treatment in humans.
A potential cure lies somewhere in the shark’s immune system. And after 39 years of working with sharks and their close relatives, skates and sting rays, Luer believes researchers finally may be close to finding it.
They have tried for decades to link the shark’s incredible ability to heal wounds and its fast-acting immune system to human healing. But for Luer, who is also the lab’s founding director of biomedical research, it has been the work of his life.
From a small off-shore laboratory on picturesque Lido Key, he’s one of a few researchers across the globe who have studied the cancer treatment link, and likely for the longest. At almost 70, he hopes he can push his research to the next level — potentially in clinical trials — before he retires or hands it over to the next generation of scientists.
It won’t be easy.
For the past 15 years, Luer and his research partner, Catherine Walsh, have struggled to find the grant funding needed to keep the research alive, and progress has stalled.
“I thought it would have happened by now,” Luer says. “But no one has gotten any further than we have.”