SAN DIEGO -- A common sea creature found in the waters off San Diego might hold the key to preventing and curing several human diseases.

It turns out the sea urchin has a lot to tell us about how we developed from a single cell into a complete human being.

Sea urchins are small, spiny creatures that have no eyes or brain and could live for up to 100 years.

"This animal extends roughly from mid-Alaska down to Bahia Magdalena," said Professor Victor Vacquier of Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Vacquier and his scientific colleagues at the University of Florida recently deciphered the gene set of the sea urchin and found that humans and sea urchins share a lot of the same biology.

A purple sea urchin has 70 percent of its genes in common with humans, including genes associated with such diseases as Huntington's, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and muscular dystrophy.

Researchers said they believe similarities in the genes of sea urchins could one day help them better understand how the human immune system works.

"There are roughly 100 human disease genes in the sea urchin genome," said Vacquier.

Because sea urchins live longer than most humans, they might also provide clues in developing new antibiotic and antiviral compounds to fight various infectious diseases.

“There's a lot of basic knowledge there that we can learn in order to help humans," said Vacquier.

Other creatures humans share common genes with are chimpanzees, mice, zebra fish and fruit flies.