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posted by cmn32480 on Friday September 02 2016, @08:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the bugs-bunny-would-be-proud dept.

Although cancer rarely acts as an infectious disease, a recently emerged transmissible cancer in Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) is virtually 100% fatal. Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) has swept across nearly the entire species' range, resulting in localized declines exceeding 90% and an overall species decline of more than 80% in less than 20 years.

Researchers have found that Tasmanian devils have developed some genetic resistance to the disease in just four to six generations.

Evolving resistance within so few generations is rare for vertebrates, says Beata Ujvari, an evolutionary ecologist at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, who was not invovled in the study. Australia's rabbit population quickly developed resistance to myxomatosis, a fatal viral infection. But it took 50–80 generations to do so.

The devil facial-tumour disease jumps from one Tasmanian devil to another when they bite each other during social interactions.

http://www.nature.com/news/tasmanian-devils-show-signs-of-resistance-to-devastating-facial-cancer-1.20508
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160830/ncomms12684/full/ncomms12684.html


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @04:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @04:29AM (#396909)

    errr ... if a gene isn't any or that much less detrimental than another gene *