Genetic Engineering.

In 1980 a team of scientists at the University of California, headed by Professor Martin Cline, successfully transferred a gene from one mouse to another. Cline's team of researchers took genetic material from the bone marrow of a drug-resistant strain of mice and placed it into mice not possessing the gene. Such gene-replacement techniques, researchers hoped, might eventually lead to applications in healing sick people. They had potential use in increasing the drug tolerance of human cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy or in helping sickle-cell anemia patients overcome this malady.

Giant Mice.

In yet another genetic experiment researchers at four U.S. laboratories collaborated during the early 1980s in engineering genetically altered mice. Their endeavors resulted in offspring twice the size of the parents. They achieved this outcome by placing a growth hormone from rats into the reproductive eggs of laboratory mice. The growth...