Colossal Foundation Partners With University of Tasmania on Vaccines and Gene Editing to Fight Devil Facial Tumour Disease
The collaboration pairs a field-ready vaccine program with gene-editing research aimed at reducing devils' susceptibility to a transmissible cancer that has cut wild populations by roughly 80%
A contagious facial cancer has erased roughly 80% of Tasmania's wild devils since it surfaced in the 1990s, and biting, a natural behavior for feeding and mating, spreads it faster than conservation can contain it. The Colossal Foundation, the nonprofit conservation arm of Colossal Biosciences, is now joining the fight. It has partnered with the University of Tasmania to attack Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) on two fronts.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260701301813/en/ Colossal Foundation Partners With University of Tasmania on Vaccines and Gene Editing to Fight Devil Facial Tumour Disease
Two related cancers, DFT1 (first documented in 1996) and DFT2 (identified in 2014), are nearly always fatal, and because devils are Tasmania's apex scavenger and predator, their loss ripples across the island's ecosystems.
