Naming the gene that causes cancer as Pokemon, the research team almost got sued by Nintendo

As a “historian” Pokemon world leader, Dr. Lava recently shared a funny story related to the name Pokemon. Referring to Pokemon, people immediately think of the famous series of games and anime that few people know that there was once a cancer-causing gene named after this brand. However, this was Nintendo discovered and the company almost sued the research team if it refused to change its name.
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Discovered in the early 2000s by geneticist Pier Paolo Pandolfi of New York-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, this gene is a key contributor to a deadly cancer in humans. . The results of the study will be published in scientific journals but first, one needs to give the gene a name. The name that Mr. Pandolfi came up with at that time was “POK Erythroid Myeloid ONtogenic” or abbreviated as “Pokemon”. Well, it doesn’t matter if Pokemon isn’t the name of a major Nintendo franchise.

Fearing that calling the cancer-causing gene Pokemon would cause negative effects to the media promotion, Nintendo, after discovering it, threatened to sue the research team if it refused to change the name. Faced with Nintendo’s tough attitude, the team of doctors was forced to rename this gene “Zbtb7” and thanks to that the world was free of a cancer-causing gene called Pokemon.
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Launched in 1996, the image of the most typical Pokémon, Pikachu, has been popular worldwide. Currently, Pokémon is always in the top of the most profitable franchises in history.

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