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'Immune' creature succumbs to cancer
Source: Agencies |
September 2, 2010, Thursday
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A TASMANIAN devil named Cedric, once thought to be immune to a contagious facial cancer threatening the creatures with extinction, has been euthanized after succumbing to the disease, researchers said yesterday.
The death of the devil - previously heralded as a possible key to saving the species - is a blow for scientists struggling to stop the rapid spread of the cancer, which is transmitted when the furry black marsupials bite each other.
"It was very disappointing indeed," said Alex Kreiss of the Menzies Research Institute in Hobart, Tasmania, which has led the studies on Cedric.
The Tasmanian devil population has plummeted by 70 percent since Devil Facial Tumor Disease was first discovered in 1996. The snarling, fox-sized creatures - made famous by their Looney Tunes cartoon namesake Taz - don't exist in the wild outside Tasmania, an island state south of the Australian mainland.
In 2007, Menzies researchers injected Cedric and his half brother Clinky with facial cancer cells. Clinky developed the disease, but Cedric showed an immune response and grew no tumors - giving researchers hope he could help them create a vaccine.
But in late 2008, Cedric developed two small tumors after being injected with a different strain of the cancer, which causes grotesque facial growths that grow so large that eating becomes impossible.
Current estimates suggest the species could be extinct within 25 years due to the cancer.
Researchers removed Cedric's tumors, but recent X-rays showed the cancer had spread to the animal's lungs.
The death of the devil - previously heralded as a possible key to saving the species - is a blow for scientists struggling to stop the rapid spread of the cancer, which is transmitted when the furry black marsupials bite each other.
"It was very disappointing indeed," said Alex Kreiss of the Menzies Research Institute in Hobart, Tasmania, which has led the studies on Cedric.
The Tasmanian devil population has plummeted by 70 percent since Devil Facial Tumor Disease was first discovered in 1996. The snarling, fox-sized creatures - made famous by their Looney Tunes cartoon namesake Taz - don't exist in the wild outside Tasmania, an island state south of the Australian mainland.
In 2007, Menzies researchers injected Cedric and his half brother Clinky with facial cancer cells. Clinky developed the disease, but Cedric showed an immune response and grew no tumors - giving researchers hope he could help them create a vaccine.
But in late 2008, Cedric developed two small tumors after being injected with a different strain of the cancer, which causes grotesque facial growths that grow so large that eating becomes impossible.
Current estimates suggest the species could be extinct within 25 years due to the cancer.
Researchers removed Cedric's tumors, but recent X-rays showed the cancer had spread to the animal's lungs.
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