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See-Through Fish Help Cancer Research
Hugh Pickens writes "What is transparent, swims, and helps cure cancer? Caspar the friendly fish — a zebrafish bred with a see-through body to make studying disease processes easier for rapidly changing processes such as cancer, Zebrafish are genetically similar to humans in many ways and serve as good models for human biology and disease. In one experiment, researchers inserted a fluorescent melanoma tumor into the abdominal cavity of the transparent fish and by observing the fish under a microscope, they found that the cancer cells started spreading within five days and could actually see individual cells spreading. "The process by which a tumor goes from being localized to widespread and ultimately fatal is the most vexing problem that oncologists face," says Richard White, a clinical fellow in the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston. "We don't know why cancer cells decide to move away from their primary site to other parts in the body." Researchers created the transparent fish, (photo) by mating two existing zebrafish breeds, one that lacked a reflective skin pigment and the other without black pigment. The offspring had only yellow skin pigment, essentially appearing clear."
No, you find the gene at http://zfin.org/
See people, we can create freakish nightmares of creation without even using genetic modification! Really, being afraid of the unnatural qualities of "Frankenfood" makes about as much sense as being afraid of "Boo-Berry" cereal.
Demented But Determined.
Zebrafish, the nematode C. Elegans, and fruitflies have each been model organisms for years for geneticists. It's just easier to hack the underlying biology when all the scientists are focusing on the same exact species.
Two great things about zebrafish:
1. You can see all sorts of diseases in them, not just cancer.
2. They're cheap. A small team at a small lab, like at a State College (see Project #4), can do good quality research with them. Even better, several small teams can be researching concurrently.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Not in particular. There are a lot of conserved pathways and genes but not more than any other fish. They're nice because they're a more convenient model organism to use than mice or chimps. You can fit a lot more of them in a tank, they're relatively inexpensive, they have a short generation time, and they're more of less transparent so you can observe internal structures (particularly for developmental bio purposes) and use luminescent/colorimetric techniques with out having to do any dissections. So they do make a good model, in fact one of the genes involved in determining skin color in humans was recently identified using Zebrafish.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5055391