In @meyersonlab online presentation today, I was struck by how often farmers have brought diseased animals to the attention of researchers. He mentioned Peyton Rous and the famous chicken with a tumor that led to discovery of Rous sarcoma virus and the c-Src proto-oncogene./1 
In 1933, a western Wisconsin farmer who was tired of his cows bleeding to death after eating wet clover brought a dead cow to @UWiscResearch in Madison. This led to isolation of dicoumarol by #KarlLink, now "warfarin" anticoagulant (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation = WARF.)/2
Back in 1902, William Castle here in Boston was looking for an experimental animal system and he got some inbred mice from a woman named Abbie Lathrop of Granby, Massachusetts. These mice became "C57 Black 6" and were key to development of @jacksonlab./3 mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-…
And @MrinalPatnaik has written/discussed in @ASHClinicalNews how amateurs & scientists with a passion for snakes and for understanding their venoms have helped propel thrombosis/hemostasis research forward. I wonder what other examples there are out there? /4End
