Pokemon USA threat leads to gene name change

J_K9 · 12-20-2005, 11:00 AM

I quote from News.come:

Quote:

The name of a cancer-causing gene has been changed from "Pokemon" to Zbtb7 after Pokemon USA threatened legal action to keep scientists from referring to the gene by the game's name, according to an article in science journal Nature.

In January's issue, geneticist Pier Paolo Pandolfi of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York describes the cancer-causing POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic gene, calling it Pokemon.

The gene in question is part of the POK gene family that encodes proteins that turn off other genes. POK proteins are critical in embryonic development, cellular differentiation and oncogenesis, according to the National Cancer Institute.

What a joke! I mean, to call a gene linked to cancer "Pokemon" is just looking for trouble...

-jk

Hangdog42 · 12-20-2005, 11:26 AM

That's nothing. A few years ago a lab doing research found a gene linked to memory and intelligence and named it "rutabaga". They had to issue a very public apology after the paper was published.

J_K9 · 12-20-2005, 01:01 PM

That's not so bad - rutabaga is only a vegetable (although it is a bit funny

). But calling a gene after a cartoon series? What's that about...

Cheers,

-jk

Hangdog42 · 12-20-2005, 03:38 PM

I know that for some labs that study fruit flies, there is an informal competition to come up with the cleverest/funniest gene names and that has probably spilled over into the rest of biology now. Of course as the number of people trying to be clever increases, the quality of the output dramatically decreases.......

Master Fox · 12-20-2005, 04:07 PM

that is just weird, i throught the sciensts would threat pokemon not vice versa, very bizzare

J_K9 · 12-20-2005, 04:44 PM

Yeh, but Pokemon Inc is a very powerful company - and plus, they have all the copyrights on the name "Pokemon", so I guess it's fair. That doesn't mean that I don't think it's completely ridiculous!

-jk

Dragineez · 12-21-2005, 11:23 AM

In daily use I would much rather say "Pokemon". "POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic" doesn't quite roll off the tongue.