{"id":810816,"date":"2026-07-19T20:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T20:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/810816\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T20:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T20:15:11","slug":"gene-editing-could-help-tasmanian-devils-fight-off-deadly-facial-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/810816\/","title":{"rendered":"Gene editing could help Tasmanian devils fight off deadly facial cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new research partnership hopes to make Tasmanian devils more resistant to the contagious cancer that has driven the species toward extinction.<\/p>\n

The Colossal Foundation and the University of Tasmania have joined forces to take on devil facial tumour disease, known as DFTD.<\/p>\n

The disease has wiped out about 80% of wild devils since it was first found in 1996.<\/p>\n

It spreads when devils bite each other while feeding and mating. Tumours grow around the mouth and face until the animal can no longer eat and it is almost always fatal.<\/p>\n

Two separate cancers are at work. DFT1 arrived first in 1996 and has spread across most of Tasmania. DFT2 emerged in the state\u2019s south in 2014 and is still spreading.<\/p>\n

\"\"Devil facial tumour disease has wiped out about 80% of wild devils. Image \/ National Geographic<\/p>\n

The partnership is pursuing two approaches at once.<\/p>\n

The first is a vaccine. Andrew Flies and his team at the university\u2019s Menzies Institute for Medical Research have built an oral bait vaccine designed to train the devil immune system to fight both cancers.<\/p>\n

The Colossal Foundation says the bait could one day protect wild devils across Tasmania without every animal having to be trapped and injected.<\/p>\n

The foundation will pay to set up a colony of fat-tailed dunnarts, a mouse-sized relative of the devil, in Hobart.<\/p>\n

The colony would let scientists test whether the vaccine is safe before any trials on devils begin.<\/p>\n

\"\"A second strain of the cancer known as DFT2 emerged in the south in 2014. Image \/ NRE Tasmania<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve spent years developing a vaccine designed to train the devil immune system to fight these cancers but progress is slow due to the challenges of working with an endangered species and having a lack of marsupial research tools,\u201d Flies said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPartnering with the Colossal Foundation can significantly accelerate our vaccine work and allow us to explore a gene-editing strategy in parallel that could enhance the vaccine and make devils more resistant to DFTD.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second approach focuses on a gene called LZTR1, which researchers think plays a role in the origin of the tumours.<\/p>\n

The teams want to test whether editing the gene could reduce how susceptible devils are to the cancers.<\/p>\n

\"\"Andrew Flies has spent years developing a vaccine against DFTD. Image \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

The devil is Tasmania\u2019s apex scavenger and researchers say its decline has flow-on effects for the wider ecosystem, including allowing feral cats to spread.<\/p>\n

Colossal built its marsupial expertise through its bid to bring back the thylacine. It is now applying those tools to living species.<\/p>\n

The vaccine still has to pass safety trials before it can be tested on wild devils.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new research partnership hopes to make Tasmanian devils more resistant to the contagious cancer that has driven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-810816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}