Researchers from the University of Tasmania, Australia and the University of Cambridge in United Kingdom found a new form of contagious cancer. This new type transmissible disease was found in the Tasmanian devil in Australia.
The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, challenged humans' understanding of the processes which drive cancers to become communicable. Not only that the discovery of a third form indicates such cancers may arise more frequently than previously thought, it was also forecasted to wipe out an entire species in the near future.
There are only two other forms of transmissible cancer that have been observed in nature to day: in dogs and in soft-shell clams. According to University of Cambridge's official website, cancer normally happens when cells in the body start to proliferate violently.
It was made known in the past that cancers can spread and invade the body through a process called metastasis. However, it is also important to note that cancers do not usually survive beyond the body of the host from whose cells it initially derived.
Now, the second genetically distinct type of transmissible cancer was found in Tasmania devils. "The second cancer causes tumours on the face that are outwardly indistinguishable from the previously-discovered cancer," first author Dr. Ruth Pye of the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania stated in the report. "So far it has been detected in eight devils in the south-east of Tasmania."
Dr. Elizabeth Murchison from the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Cambridge and a senior author on the study admitted that they have always thought that transmissible cancers usually arise rarely in nature up until now. However, she confessed that, with the new discovery, it makes them question their previous belief.
"Previously, we thought that Tasmanian devils were extremely unlucky to have fallen victim to a single runaway cancer that emerged from one individual devil and spread through the devil population by biting," Dr. Murchison added. "However, now that we have discovered that this has happened a second time, it makes us wonder if Tasmanian devils might be particularly vulnerable to developing this type of disease, or that transmissible cancers may not be as rare in nature as we previously thought."
