California sea lion patient at The Marine Mammal Center (IMAGE)

The Marine Mammal Center

California sea lion patient at The Marine Mammal Center

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California sea lion Moonunit was one of 258 sea lions examined in necropsy, or animal autopsy, for cancer at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, CA, in a newly released study published in Animals as part of the Special Issue Oncogenic Viruses in Animals. The findings support that genital herpesvirus, specifically otarine herpesvirus-1 (OtHV1), plays an integral role in sea lion urogenital carcinoma and suggests there is an underlying trigger or event that causes the virus to induce cancer in some infected sea lions and not others.

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Credit © The Marine Mammal Center

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