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  • TECHNOLOGY FEATURE

Cancer research with a human touch

Advances in gene editing are allowing researchers to create mouse models that more closely mirror the disease in humans.
  1. Mike May

    1. Mike May is a freelance writer based near Houston, Texas.

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In 1915, with the world at war, Japanese pathologist Katsusaburo Yamagiwa and his assistant Koichi Ichikawa were focused on a killer nearly as deadly as the battle raging on the Western Front. The duo, based at what was then the Imperial University of Tokyo, had spent more than 150 days painting coal tar on the ears of rabbits. Finally, they found that the rabbits had cancer.

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Nature 556, 259-261 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-04161-w

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