Researchers in Norwich have helped towards finding a cure for cancer, after taking a step towards understanding why an African rat lives for 30 years and is resistant to the killer disease. 

Staff at the Genome Analysis Centre at Norwich Research Park have been working with colleagues from the University of Liverpool on finding cures for diseases of old age, particularly cancer.

And their work has focused on the naked mole-rat which is native to the deserts of East Africa, lives underground, is impervious to pain and can survive despite the depleted oxygen levels in its burrows.