Now, he says, the transposon may make it possible to more easily figure out what genes are involved in disease.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Xu's trick: a genetic quirk called a transposon--a so-called jumping gene--that his team stole from the genome of the cabbage looper moth.

FORBES: Magazine Article

While Xu and his colleagues were experimenting with a moth transposon, dubbed PiggyBac, Largaespada and his colleagues were working with another transposon, Sleeping Beauty.

FORBES: Glowing Mice From China And Other Oddities

The transposon discovery won McClintock the Nobel Prize in 1983, but until very recently none of these genetic tools could be used by scientists studying mammals.

FORBES: Glowing Mice From China And Other Oddities