University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have unlocked a potential new treatment to target an incurable form of childhood cancer with the help of a fast-reproducing pest known for swarming kitchen produce.
Professors Melissa Harrison and Peter Lewis used fruit flies to to study how cellular pathways are misregulated by a cancer-causing mutant protein. The pesky bugs were perfect lab subjects for the project because two-thirds of the cancer-causing genes in humans are shared by fruit flies.