Two of the elephants involved in the project, Julia and Sara, are recent retirees of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which have now stopped using elephants in their performances.
The project is led by Joshua D. Schiffman, MD, a pediatric oncologist, and will be housed at the Center for Elephant Conservation in Polk City, Fla., according to Slate. The research will focus on the blood of elephants, which contains a gene that suppresses tumor growth, in hopes that a synthetic version might be developed.
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