This sort of thing makes you wonder about how valuable protecting biodiversity is - how easily one of the hundreds of thousands of species being wiped out could be critical in allowing us to find out some key potential understanding of how DNA can work, which otherwise it could take us centuries to uncover without a natural example to start from.
If it doesn't help next quarter's or Fiscal year's numbers then I think most people don't care. :(
Little tip from the future: engineer a mouse to express the same gene. 2 things happen, 1) the mouse doesn't get cancer and 2) be amazed at how long the mouse lives....
I worry about this sort of thing - the entire genome is so non orthogonal, there is no telling that other effects this thing has.