en.Wedoany.com Reported - On July 1, 2026, the Colossal Foundation and the University of Tasmania announced a partnership to combat Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), a fatal transmissible cancer that has caused an approximately 80% decline in the wild Tasmanian devil population.
The Colossal Foundation is the non-profit conservation arm of Colossal Biosciences. Under the collaboration, the Foundation will support the establishment of a fat-tailed dunnart research population at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research on the University of Tasmania's Hobart campus. The teams will also collaborate on building gene-editing capabilities to advance DFTD vaccine testing and explore the long-term potential for heritable resistance to transmissible cancers in dasyurid marsupials. This partnership expands Colossal's marsupial biotechnology platform, developed through its thylacine de-extinction program, and joins its growing portfolio of conservation projects in Australia, including a world-first engineered cane toad toxin resistance demonstration project to protect the endangered northern quoll.
Matt James, Executive Director of the Colossal Foundation, stated that Devil facial tumour disease is one of the most devastating wildlife diseases on Earth, and this transmissible cancer is pushing an iconic marsupial toward collapse, with cascading ecological impacts across the entire island. He noted that Andy Flies and his team at the University of Tasmania have developed the most advanced DFTD vaccine pipeline to date. By combining this work with Colossal's marsupial husbandry, reproductive science, and gene-editing platforms, there is potential to accelerate these efforts and offer the Tasmanian devil a fighting chance.
The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), the world's largest extant carnivorous marsupial, is threatened by two independent transmissible cancers. DFT1 was discovered in 1996 and has since spread across most of the species' range; DFT2 was discovered in southern Tasmania in 2014 and continues to emerge. Both cancers cause large tumors around the mouth and face, preventing devils from feeding, and are nearly 100% fatal. The disease spreads directly through biting between devils, making it almost uncontrollable by conventional means. Since the emergence of DFTD, the wild devil population has declined by approximately 80%.
The Wild Immunology Group at the University of Tasmania, led by Associate Professor Andrew Flies, has been developing a two-pronged strategy. The first aspect is an advanced vaccine program: the Flies team has developed a ready-to-use oral bait vaccine designed to train the devil's immune system to recognize and destroy DFT1 and DFT2 cells. The second aspect is a gene-editing strategy centered on the LZTR1 gene, which is associated with cancer-related pathways in other species and is hypothesized to play a significant role in the origin and biology of devil facial tumors. Under the partnership, LZTR1 gene-editing work will proceed on two complementary tracks: Colossal's Melbourne, Australia team will edit LZTR1 in fat-tailed dunnart induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), while Dr. Anuk Kruawan at the University of Tasmania will edit LZTR1 in devil cell lines.
Andrew Flies stated that the team has spent years developing vaccines aimed at training the devil's immune system to fight these cancers, but progress has been slow due to working with an endangered species and a lack of marsupial research tools. He noted that partnering with the Colossal Foundation can significantly accelerate the vaccine work and allow parallel exploration of gene-editing strategies to enhance vaccine efficacy and make devils more resistant to DFTD.
The fat-tailed dunnart (Sminthopsis crassicaudata), a close relative of the Tasmanian devil and the thylacine, provides a critical bridge. The Colossal Foundation is supporting the establishment of a dedicated dunnart population at the University of Tasmania's Menzies Institute for Medical Research facility in Hobart. Once operational, this population will allow vaccine safety and immunogenicity trials in a biologically relevant marsupial model. Andrew Pask, Chief Biology Officer at Colossal, said that to build the thylacine program, the company had to develop tools for marsupial cell culture, gene editing, reproductive biology, and husbandry. These tools can now be applied to extant species, and using this platform for the Tasmanian devil's cancer fight demonstrates how de-extinction science can deliver immediate conservation value for living species.
Ben Lamm, Co-founder and CEO of Colossal, stated that the de-extinction program is driving the development of entirely new biological tools and platforms, and the company is now deploying these technologies to combat one of the most devastating wildlife diseases on Earth—this is the conservation power of de-extinction.
The partnership is also supported by the Tasmania Thylacine Advisory Committee (TTAC). Michelle Dracoulis, Mayor of the Derwent Valley Council and Chair of TTAC, said that the work established by Associate Professor Andrew Flies and his team in Hobart is world-class, and being enhanced through the support of the Colossal Foundation brings genuine hope for the species' future. Greg Irons, Director of the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, stated that anything that offers a real path to recovery for the devil deserves full support.
