The team, at the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology at Oxford University, were looking for a protein, called gamma-H2AX, which is produced in response to damaged DNA. This tends to be one of the first steps on the road to a cell becoming cancerous.

BBC: One test may 'find many cancers'

Similarly, Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff, a professor of radiation oncology and cell biology at NYU and her team lost mouse populations involved in studies of how radiation exposure increases cancer risk as well as how radiation can be targeted to treat tumors.

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The Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source houses synchrotron radiation facilities for research in physics, chemistry, biology, and environmental and materials sciences.

FORBES: Back to Basics at the National Science Foundation