SALISBURY COVE – Researchers at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory announced this week that tests conducted with red blood cells from skates, a close relative of the shark, revealed how human kidney cells release excess water.

Understanding how the cells operate could provide insight into symptoms of human diseases, including diabetes and cancer.

A paper, completed by Dr. Leon Goldstein and Dr. Mark Musch, will be published in the American Journal of Physiology in April.

The lab also is working to sequence the genetics of a skate as part of a National Institutes of Health effort to map numerous animal species’ DNA in hopes of better understanding human genetics.