transmissible cancers

ihatesnowihatesnow

http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/index.html

wallycat

Have not listened to the podcast, but HPV is a well known "transmittable" that increases risk of cervical (and oral) cancers.

Lojo

HPV is a virus that triggers cancerous changes in the human cells, which is different than what the new study is describing - the link is about transmissible cancers. To give an example with the Tasmanian Devil facial tumors - what is being transmitted is a Tasmanian devil cell from some initial devil (!) that then manages to grow on a new devil host, giving the new host cancer - but not because it causes the new host's cells to change and develop cancer - the cancerous cells themselves are transmitted from one host to another. It would be like bumping someone on the arm who has skin cancer and getting skin cancer because the very cells from the person you bumped arms with have migrated to your body. Fortunately, humans seem to have a robust immune system to identify foreign human cells.