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Does anyone know if C. Elegans get cancer? Not that I'm concerned about the prevention of cancer as a mechanism to prolonging life in this study, but I would consider potential unintended consequences in mucking with these signaling and immune pathways. It still seems to be an interesting finding.

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>Does anyone know if C. Elegans get cancer?

I don't, however C. Elegans has an average lifespan around 2–3 WEEKS.

That doesn't give them a whole lot of time to be exposed to damage from umpteen sources of radiation, environmental pollutants, stress, etc unlike humans that live 7 decades (the current worldwide life expectancy is 70.5 years) which is more than 400 times longer.

C. Elegans can develop tumors, but only in the germ line (gamete-producing) cells, which are the only stem cells. There are no adult somatic stem cells, i.e. no ability for repair, so no mechanism for cancer growth in the body.

That said, many of the pathways that are central to mammalian cancers are there in C. Elegans, which still makes it a valuable model organism for cancer research.

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