{"id":22749,"date":"2026-07-27T10:56:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T06:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/?p=22749"},"modified":"2026-07-27T11:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:06:15","slug":"scientists-have-discovered-a-fourth-type-of-transmissible-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/scientists-have-discovered-a-fourth-type-of-transmissible-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists have discovered a fourth type of transmissible cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"1\"><span class=\"\">Scientists have discovered an entirely new,<\/span><span class=\"\"> fourth type of transmissible cancer.<\/span><span class=\"\"> According to a study published in the journal <\/span><i class=\"\" data-path-to-node=\"1\" data-index-in-node=\"127\">Nature<\/i><span class=\"\">,<\/span><span class=\"\"> melanoma found in brown bullheads living in Lake Memphremagog,<\/span><span class=\"\"> Vermont,<\/span><span class=\"\"> does not develop through genetic mutations within the organism,<\/span><span class=\"\"> but is transmitted from one fish to another in the form of live cancer cells.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"2\"><span class=\"\">Initially,<\/span><span class=\"\"> researchers attributed the cause of the disease to chemical water pollution or a viral infection.<\/span><span class=\"\"> However,<\/span><span class=\"\"> years of genetic sequencing revealed no trace of a virus.<\/span><span class=\"\"> Geneticists at the University of Vermont discovered that the DNA of the tumor tissue did not match the DNA of the host fish on which it was growing.<\/span><span class=\"\"> This confirms that we are dealing with a clonal,<\/span><span class=\"\"> transmissible cancer where the tumor cell itself acts as the infectious agent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"3\"><span class=\"\">The disease manifests in fish as black growths on their bodies,<\/span><span class=\"\"> including their mouths and barbels,<\/span><span class=\"\"> making it difficult for them to forage for food.<\/span><span class=\"\"> Genetic analysis shows that the disease has already spread across several US states and Canadian provinces,<\/span><span class=\"\"> as the cancer propagates rapidly through interconnected bodies of water.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"4\"><span class=\"\">Until now,<\/span><span class=\"\"> scientists knew of only three types of transmissible cancer (including those found in Tasmanian devils and bivalve mollusks).<\/span><span class=\"\"> According to the researchers,<\/span><span class=\"\"> this discovery demonstrates that transmissible tumors may be more common in nature than previously thought.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5\"><span class=\"\">Researchers emphasize that this transmissible cancer poses no threat to human health:<\/span><span class=\"\"> the fish cancer cells are exclusive to this species,<\/span><span class=\"\"> and if they were to enter the human body,<\/span><span class=\"\"> our immune system would instantly recognize and destroy them as foreign entities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/johndrake\/2026\/07\/24\/scientists-discover-the-fourth-transmissible-cancer-known-to-science\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forbes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have discovered an entirely new, fourth type of transmissible cancer. According to a study published in the journal Nature, melanoma found in brown bullheads living in Lake Memphremagog, Vermont, does not develop through genetic mutations within the organism, but is transmitted from one fish to another in the form of live cancer cells. Initially, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1594,1587,1657],"tags":[6505],"class_list":["post-22749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-research","category-science","tag-transmissible-cancer"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22755,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22749\/revisions\/22755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}