University of Otago geneticists have been looking into the DNA of the elephant shark, which is only found in New Zealand and Australian waters.
Research leader Tim Hore said the DNA memory system found in humans was made up of small tags known as methylation, which were used to direct cells to do specific jobs.
"Basically this is a mark that sits on top of DNA and it helps tell cells whether or not they should have certain genes expressed or not.
"So if we look at the liver for example, it only expresses liver genes mostly and not neurogenes," he said.
