Fireflies’ Glow Helps Researchers Track Cancer Drug’s Effectiveness
In a scintillating example of biodiversity providing crucial tools for medical research, ScienceDaily.com reports that researchers have borrowed light-producing genes from firefly genes to create a new diagnostic technique called “bioluminescence imaging” that may help determine the effectiveness of cancer drugs. “The technique requires a substrate called luciferin to be added to the bloodstream, which carries it to cells throughout the body. When luciferin reaches cells that have been altered to carry the firefly gene, those cells emit light.”
For more about the interdependence between health, medicine, and biodiversity, see Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity , an essential new book from Oxford University Press that has been enthusiastically endorsed by Al Gore.
Photograph by Alanna Krause
