The bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) can surpass two hundred years of life—an outlier even among long-lived mammals.

New research highlights one reason: whale cells switch on a cold-activated protein that boosts the repair of damaged DNA, a core defense against aging and cancer.

Working with small tissue samples collected from legally harvested bowhead whales in Arctic Alaska, researchers grew cells in the lab and tested how they respond to stress.

Compared with human cells, bowhead cells showed lower mutation rates and stronger DNA-repair capacity.

A key player was identified: CIRBP (cold-inducible RNA-binding protein), which becomes active in cold conditions—fitting for an animal that lives in near-freezing seas.

The team then asked whether this whale advantage could operate across species. When the whale form of CIRBP was expressed in human cells, DNA repair improved.

In fruit flies (Drosophila) engineered to produce the protein, lifespan increased and resistance to radiation—a DNA-damaging stressor—rose—evidence that enhanced repair can yield meaningful, organism-level benefits.

There was a twist: bowhead cells seemed easier to push toward malignancy in a petri dish (fewer driver mutations were needed) than human cells. Yet in their native context, the whales accumulate fewer DNA errors to begin with, likely because repair is so efficient.

In other words, the biology that prevents damage in the first place may matter more than how many hits it takes to transform a cell in vitro.

For humans, the key takeaway is that bolstering DNA repair pathways remains a promising strategy for healthy aging and cancer prevention.

As one senior author noted, there is room to make cellular maintenance work better—perhaps even by learning from species that have mastered it.

____________________________

Adapted from: Ledford H. “This Whale Lives for Centuries: Its Secret Could Help Extend Human Lifespan,” Nature News. 2025 Oct 29. doi:10.1038/ d41586-025-03511-9