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."

Re:ew

[Ctrl-Z]

I'd like to see how you look with a fluorescent tumour inserted into your abdominal cavity.

Re:Zebrafish International Resource Center

[kongit]

Seeing that he works with fish and speaks many languages I must assume that babelfish are involved in some manner. Additionally the name Zoltán seems suspicious. I suggest you contact the nearest Extra-Terrestrial Human Interrelations office in your district.

Re:Wake me when they actually make progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Animal models are how you do science to see what genes do.

In particular, zebrafish are popular for studying developmental biology, because they're clear as embryos and scientists can watch an organism form - in particular, they can mess up some genes and see what effect that has on the fish's development.

What's great about this clear fish line is that it brings the same see-through-vertebrate benefits to all kinds of other researchers.

Think of it as a debugging tool. It's a way to get printf statements while the code is still running, rather than just examining the core file after you seg fault.