The Colossal Foundation, a nonprofit conservation organization, has partnered with the University of Tasmania to support efforts to combat Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD), a fatal transmissible cancer that has devastated wild Tasmanian devil populations.
Conservation Crisis
The Tasmanian devil, the world’s largest living carnivorous marsupial, is threatened by two independent transmissible cancers: DFT1 and DFT2. Both cancers cause large tumours around the mouth and face that can prevent devils from eating, and both are nearly 100% fatal.
Wild devil populations have collapsed by approximately 80% since DFTD’s emergence. As Tasmania’s apex scavenger and predator, devils play an important ecological role, helping suppress feral cats and reducing pressure on smaller native species.
Vaccine and Gene Editing Strategy
The University of Tasmania Wild Immunology Group has been developing a two-pronged strategy to help the devil immune system recognize and fight DFTD. The first prong is an advanced vaccine program, and the second prong is a gene-editing strategy centered on the LZTR1 gene.
The partnership between Colossal and the University of Tasmania will explore whether targeted editing of the devil-specific LZTR1 mutations could reduce the underlying susceptibility of devils to these transmissible cancers.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
