Posted: 11:01am GMT 07/02/2008
Roger Highfield (telegraph.co.uk) -- Scientists have created ghostly transparent fish to make human biology clearer. The feat has been achieved with zebrafish are genetically similar to humans and are already in widespread use as models for human biology and disease.
The new see through fish allows scientists to directly view its internal organs, and observe processes like the spread of tumours and blood production after bone-marrow transplant in a living organism, say researchers at Children's Hospital Boston.
The fish, described in the journal Cell Stem Cell as created by Dr Richard White, with others in the laboratory of Prof Leonard Zon.
The classic method for studying human diseases in animals is to allow the animal to get the disease, kill and dissect the animal, then ask, "what happened?" But in cancer and other fast-changing processes that traverse the body, this method is bound to miss something. "It's like taking a photograph when you need a video," says White.
