A team of scientists from the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University has successfully mapped a genome of the Tasmanian devil facial tumour with an aim to determine the cause of growth of cancer, says a report revealed recently.

The group of scientists found that the Tasmanian devil has been a killer disease in Tasmania and has caused deaths of many. It has been found to be the killer of devil population of Tasmania i. e. carnivorous marsupials. The team thus mapped the devil genome and compared it with the genome of healthy Tasmanian devils.

It has been found by the team that the devil Tasmanians tend to die of the facial tumour because of inability to eat, which is seen as the result of deformity of their faces. The scientists have told the reporters that all cancers are found to be rapidly growing though. The cancerous facial tumours have been discovered as very stable and constant.

''That's really unusual for cancers, because usually for human cancers evolution is rapid and the tumour will be completely different between the original tumour and its metastases”, said Janine Deakin, lead author of the research.

Tasmanian devil facial tumour had first been found in the year 1996, as per the findings of the report. And according the latest study by the team, the devil tumour has shown minuscule change in itself over a period of 16 years since then.

Thus, the team was able to affirm that nonetheless, it had been very complex to look into what causes a cancer tumour to develop and evolve in humans. But, the stability of tumour in devil Tasmanians would definitely prove helpful in finding the cause of tumour growth in humans.