Motivated by fish
Children's Hospital Boston
First a fish trivia question - where is this ridiculous phrase used: "He's like an eagle, because like an eagle, he's motivated by FISH."
Now for the science:
Researchers in Boston have created a transparent fish that lets them track the development of its internal organs and watch the growth of cancer and other diseases in real time.
The fish’s brain, heart and digestive tracts are all visible, allowing researchers to study how genetic defects affect the organs from their early stages of development through to adulthood. You can even see its heart beating, researchers say.
Zebrafish have three skin pigments, reflective, black and yellow.
Richard White, a clinical fellow in the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston, created the new breed by mating a breed that lacks reflective pigment with one that lacks black pigment.
The offspring has only yellow pigment in its skin, essentially looking clear. White named the new breed casper.
In one experiment, White transplanted melanoma, or skin cancer, into the belly area of the fish. The cancer cells grew and within five days began to spread to the skin.
The results are described in the Feb. 7 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell. You can read more about it here.
Comments
Hmmm... let me think about it... is the answer a science blogger? Oh wait, that's not right. Science writers work for peanuts not fish.
Posted by: Chris Emery | February 7, 2008 2:03 PM
it's that great maryland lottery scratch off commercial! everytime i see it, it cracks me up and yes, i have a very sophisticated sense of humor. :)
Posted by: dan thanh | February 8, 2008 11:42 AM
That's right. The less-than-overwhelming response to this not-so-hard trivia question may indicate either of two things:
1. no one is reading this blog, or
2. people who do read it don't watch TV.
Posted by: dennis obrien | February 8, 2008 11:49 AM
In a rather terrible commercial for some career website ("Some things you should do alone..."). It may be a commercial for something else, but really that is the funniest part so the actual ad is lost on me.
And now a question on the science:
Was it because it was melanoma inserted in the belly that it spread to the skin, or was it because the skin was closest? If the former, then what does that tell us about the way different types of cancer spread?
Posted by: Heather | February 8, 2008 2:08 PM
Heather,
Thanks for your note. What happened was the researchers inserted a fluorescent melanoma tumor into the fish's abdominal cavity and by observing the fish under a microscope, they actually saw the cancer cells flock toward the skin in just a few days.
To answer your question: the cancer cells did go into the skin because they were melanoma cells, not because of the skin's proximiity. It was like the cells knew where to go because they had been programmed that way.
The scientists speculate that if they had inserted some other type of cancerous cells, the cells would have just as likely spread to the area where they were programmed to go, such as stomach cancer cells being programmed to flock throughout the stomach.
The point of a transparent fish is that it may help scientists understand how cancer grows from a tumor in one localized area to where it spreads throughout the body, an ability the report's lead author called "one of the most vexing problems" in biology, according to one online report.
If scientists can watch cancer spread, they may better understand that process.
Dennis O'Brien
Posted by: dennis obrien | February 11, 2008 12:03 PM