Carlsbad Caverns: Cancer Cure?

Just a few square yards of pond in a cave cut off from sunlight can yield more species variety than a few square miles of rainforest. True or false?

Absolutely true, according to the rangers at Carlsbad Caverns. This cave system located in southeastern New Mexico about fifty miles south of Roswell is a World Heritage Site and a national park, and with new caverns being discovered and explored on a regular basis, biologists travel here regularly to examine the flora and fauna of undisturbed caves.

Their discoveries have been simply incredible. Lechuguilla Cave, a recent find in an undisclosed location on park grounds, was explored by biologist Larry Mallory. An underground lake was filled with microbes of all sorts, in a variety unheard of outside of caves.

Why? Park rangers say it's because of the unfriendly environment within a cave. Nutrients accessible by microbes include other microbes, rocks, and whatever is washed into the cave from outside - in other words, not a lot. Without sunlight, microbes must find other sources of energy. And in still water, they must be anaerobic - able to process food and energy without oxygen.The assorted hardships result in a harshly-competitive environment, where microbe battles microbe to find enough nutrients to survive. And in this sort of environment, diversity is the key to survival. Over a thousand unique microbes have been identified, and explorers think there may be thousands more.

The biologist/cavers who came here in the 1980s and 90s to explore started asking whether these organisms were good for anything. Turns out, they are. Two traits - the production of substances warding off other bacteria and viruses, and the ability of many of these organisms to cling tightly to surfaces - turn out to be beneficial in treating cancer. Six of the organisms identified by researchers Jim Bigelow and Larry Mallory have been shown to be useful in test tubes, and one in particular produces a substance that kills off large-cell breast cancers without damaging healthy tissues.

This doesn't mean you can inject a big old syringe of microbes and cure cancer. Instead, researchers are working hard to isolate the substance that does the work. This is a long and tedious process.

But there's a problem. We've isolated one specific organism, but there are literally thousands of others to study. And just the visits of biologists are enough to contaminate formerly-pristine environments with alien bacteria and viruses. Every year, the National Park Service in Carlsbad pull out many pounds of debris from cave pools, including coins and trash. In many caves including Mammoth and Carlsbad, visitors have contaminated caves with fungus that is eating away at the walls, killing current fauna and turning the walls a sickly green or rust. Currently, biologists and rangers are trying to find good balances between protecting these fragile ecosystems and allowing tourists in to see the beauty hidden beneath our feet.