See-through fish is created to give a clearer idea of how cancer spreads

A transparent zebrafish has been engineered to allow scientists to watch how cancers develop and behave inside the body in real time.

Each internal organ of the fish and its bones can be seen clearly throughout its life. Observations have shown already that the spread of cancer cells is not random – they home in on a particular area.

Researchers who bred the transparent fish at the Children’s Hospital, Boston, in the United States, were able to watch as melanoma cells left the abdominal cavity and made directly for the skin, where the disease took hold. Before the innovation, scientists were reliant on getting a snapshot of the spread by dissecting specimens.

Richard White, the lead researcher in the project, reported in the journal Cell Stem Cell, said that cancer changed so rapidly in the body that dissection was “bound to miss something”, but the transparent fish allowed the whole process to be witnessed.

Zebrafish were chosen for their strong genetic similarities to human beings. Having seen that the cells home in on one region of the body, scientists have started to look at how it might be possible to modify them so they lose all sense of direction.

Source - The Times

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