The toothy villain of “Jaws” terrified audiences in 1975. Offscreen, the hit film — which is celebrating its 50th anniversary — impacted sharks in unexpected ways.

After 450 million years of evolutionary history, shark populations are collapsing, and more than a third of shark species and their relatives face extinction. Now scientists are trying to use the lure of “Jaws” to advance shark conservation efforts.

The transcriptome (or sum total of the messenger RNA) of the white shark showed greater similarity to the human transcriptome than to that of other fishes. This hints that "unexpressed genes" in the shark could one day play a role in uncovering genetic pathways for potential cures in human diseases.