{"id":5026,"date":"2015-08-24T11:04:24","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T09:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.embl.de\/?p=5026"},"modified":"2024-04-19T15:23:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T13:23:17","slug":"1508-dftd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/events\/1508-dftd\/","title":{"rendered":"Branches: Sympathy for the devil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">By Susan Watt<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p1\">You could say that sympathy for the devil is what led Elizabeth Murchison to her field of research \u2013 not for Satan himself, but for the fierce little marsupials known as Tasmanian devils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p1\">This species, unique to Tasmania, is under threat from a form of cancer that, bizarrely, is spread by direct transmission from one individual to another: infectious cancer, in other words. Called devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), it causes large tumours on the face and inside the mouth of affected animals and has rapidly spread through the Tasmanian devil population. It appears to be both untreatable and invariably fatal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"p3 wp-block-heading\">Biting into evolution<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p1\">Now based at the University of Cambridge in the UK, Murchison, who spoke at the joint <a href=\"http:\/\/news.embl.de\/events\/science-meets-politics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EMBO|EMBL Science and Policy event<\/a>&nbsp;last year, focuses her research on the genetic aspects of DFTD and other transmissible cancers. These strange diseases seem at first sight to completely contradict our understanding of the nature of cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scienceinschool.org\/content\/infectious-cancers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read the full article,&nbsp;published in issue 32 of <i>Science in School &gt;<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image wp-image-5028 size-full\"><figure class=\"vf-figure  | vf-figure--align vf-figure--align-centered  size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"380\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/1508-devil-sick.jpg\" alt=\"DFTD is a fatal condition in Tasmanian devils\" class=\"wp-image-5028\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/1508-devil-sick.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/1508-devil-sick-300x184.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">DFTD is a fatal condition in Tasmanian devils, characterised by cancers around the mouth and head. Photo: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vet.cam.ac.uk\/directory\/murchison\"> Elizabeth Murchison<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A contagious cancer threatens the Tasmanian devil \u2013 extract from Science in School journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":5029,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[31,32,60,242],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-5026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-lab-matters","tag-evolution","tag-health","tag-science-and-society","tag-science-in-school"],"acf":{"article_intro":"<p>Is it possible to pass cancer from one individual to another? For some animals, it is \u2013 and, sadly, a unique Tasmanian species is facing possible extinction as a result. This is an extract of an article published in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scienceinschool.org\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Science in School<\/em> <\/a>journal for science teachers.<\/p>\n","related_links":[{"link_description":"Infectious cancers \u2013 Science in School, issue 32, 1 July 2015","link_url":"http:\/\/www.scienceinschool.org\/content\/infectious-cancers"},{"link_description":"Science in School","link_url":"http:\/\/www.scienceinschool.org\/"},{"link_description":"Elizabeth Murchison, University of Cambridge","link_url":"http:\/\/www.vet.cam.ac.uk\/directory\/murchison"}],"article_sources":false,"vf_locked":false,"featured":false,"color":"#007B53"},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Branches: Sympathy for the devil | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A contagious cancer \u2013 Devil facial tumour disease (GFTD) \u2013 is driving the Tasmanian devil to extinction. 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