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Genetically Engineered Zebrafish | Overview

 

Dr. Leonard Zon, along with postdoctoral fellow Dr. Elizabeth Patton and colleagues, genetically engineered this zebrafish to make the mutated form of human BRAF, which caused the fish to develop black-pigmented moles on its skin. 

When the fish were also made to be deficient for a gene called p53, which suppresses tumor growth, the moles developed into invasive melanomas resembling human cancers. The researchers' findings appear in the February 8th, 2005 issue of Current Biology.