Snip from News.com story:
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.
Link to News.com story, and Link to original report in Nature
(Thanks, KidneyNotes!)
Reader comment: Aki Zeta-Five says,
You know there's a gene named after Sonic the Hedgehog? Link. I guess Sega is just more science-friendly than Nintendo.
