Cockles (Cerastoderma edule) collected in the ria of Arousa in Galicia, SpainDAVID IGLESIAS, CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIONS MARINAS, XUNTA DE GALICIA, SPAINResearchers from Columbia University in New York and their colleagues uncovered the first evidence of a contagious cancer among mollusks in a population of soft shell clams in 2015. Now, collaborating with biologists in Spain and Canada, the same team has uncovered three additional bivalve species with distinct transmissible cancers, including a malady that appears to have originated in a different species. The team’s latest results appeared today (June 22) in Nature.
“This is a really exciting study,” Elizabeth Murchison, a cancer biologist at the University of Cambridge, U.K., who was not involved in the work told The Scientist. “A few years ago, we only knew of two examples [of transmissible cancers]: in dogs and Tasmanian devils. Now, with five transmissible cancers in bivalves and the identification of a second transmissible cancer in Tasmanian devils, perhaps these cancers are not as rare as we previously thought.” (See “The Devil’s Details,” The Scientist, November 2014; “Contagious Dog Cancer Sequenced,” The Scientist, January 23, 2014.)
“This is a fantastic and important finding,” said Irv Weissman, a cancer researcher at Stanford University who was also not involved in the work. “What is clear is that the authors identified many . ...
