CLU researcher's work to be featured on 'Shark Week'

Ventura

The idea to get DNA from just a fragment of a great white shark’s tooth came after Ralph Collier read about work happening in Kenya.

A jaw bone from a juvenile white shark in Professor Bryan Swig's lab at California Lutheran University.

That work didn’t involve any sharks.

But, Collier, founder of Shark Research Committee in Chatsworth, read about the researcher developing techniques to extract DNA from elephant tusks and started making calls.

After some questions and research, he reached out to a friend at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Soon, he started working with Professor Bryan Swig to find a way to extract DNA from fragments of a shark tooth.

“It wasn’t believed you could extract the DNA from just a fragment,” said Swig, a professor and alum of CLU.

People thought the pulp or the root of the tooth was needed to get the genetic material, he said. But his team wanted to see if they could get DNA from just a thin layer of enamel.

They succeeded, he said.

Bryan Swig, a professor at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Their work will be featured on an episode of the Discovery Channel’s "Shark Week." Scheduled to air Sunday night, the episode is one of several over the past few years that included a look at the research happening locally.

This isn’t the only way to get DNA from sharks. Other researchers have extracted the genetic material from sharks using tissue and blood samples.

But this could add to what’s known about the species using fragments of teeth left in objects or in prey species, like sea otters and seals, the researchers said.

"This is just another facet of the research being done of these animals that will hopefully provide us with additional insights," Collier said.

CLU students worked with Professor Bryan Swig to extract DNA from fragments of a shark tooth.

The tooth fragment that Swig used to extract DNA came from one of the fatal attacks that occurred at Surf Beach near Vandenberg Air Force Base. The beach had two fatal attacks in recent years, the first in 2010 and a second in 2012.

Some people wondered if it was one specific shark that could be responsible for the attacks. Swig and Collier said that's unlikely.

So far, the research showed the tooth fragment definitely came from a white shark, Swig said.

He hopes to eventually be able to tell if the shark was from a specific family group.

That information could help form a clearer picture about white sharks off the Pacific coast and whether different groups of sharks have defined patterns of migration.

If distinct patterns develop, Collier said that could potentially help communities better manage areas where adult sharks are found.

Swig said he saw the technique as a less intrusive way to identify the white sharks using their DNA.

Back in 2014, when the project started at CLU, undergraduate students worked with Swig and others. They used teeth from a similar fish that was commercially available to develop the technique.

After grinding down the tooth fragments, they used a fast-spinning centrifuge and chemicals to separate other material from the DNA.

The show called "Great White Shark Serial Killer Lives” is scheduled to air at 7 p.m. Sunday on the Discovery Channel.