--- title: "A python named Jodie Foster becomes the first snake treated with electrochemotherapy" description: "A 23-year-old reticulated python at Chester Zoo is believed to be the first snake anywhere to receive electrochemotherapy, a technique borrowed from human oncology that uses electrical pulses to drive a small dose of chemotherapy into tumor cells. Her keepers say she is back to her bright and feisty self." category: "Science" category_url: https://newsparlor.com/category/science author: "Maya Coleman" published: 2026-08-21T04:46:23.000Z updated: 2026-08-21T04:46:23.000Z canonical: https://newsparlor.com/article/a-python-named-jodie-foster-becomes-the-first-snake-treated-with-electrochemothe tags: ["veterinary-medicine", "cancer", "reptiles", "chester-zoo", "oncology"] --- # A python named Jodie Foster becomes the first snake treated with electrochemotherapy A 23-year-old reticulated python at Chester Zoo is believed to be the first snake anywhere to receive electrochemotherapy, a technique borrowed from human oncology that uses electrical pulses to drive a small dose of chemotherapy into tumor cells. Her keepers say she is back to her bright and feisty self. A 23-year-old reticulated python at Chester Zoo in northwest England is [believed to be the first snake in the world treated with electrochemotherapy](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/21/python-jodie-foster-snake-cancer-electrochemotherapy), a cancer therapy developed for human patients and since adapted for pets and other animals. The snake is called Jodie Foster. She was named after the actor when she arrived at the zoo around two decades ago and staff noticed the initials JF, for juvenile female, on her paperwork. She is roughly 15 feet long and weighs about 40 kilograms. Keepers first noticed something was wrong when she began eating less. [In 2024 she had surgery to remove a fibrosarcoma, a malignant tumor, from her jaw](https://www.birminghamworld.uk/news/chester-zoo-snake-believed-to-be-first-in-the-world-to-benefit-from-human-cancer-treatment-8931364). The growth came back, which is what led her veterinary team to try something that had not been done on a snake before. ## What electrochemotherapy does The technique addresses an old problem in oncology: chemotherapy drugs work if they get inside tumor cells, and much of the dose never does. Electrochemotherapy solves part of that mechanically. Short, [carefully controlled electrical pulses are applied directly to the tumor, briefly increasing the permeability of the cell membranes in a process called electroporation](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12972356/), which lets the drug enter far more efficiently. The drug used is usually bleomycin, which damages the DNA of the cells it reaches. The practical consequence is that a much smaller dose achieves the same effect on the tumor, and the systemic side effects that make chemotherapy so punishing are correspondingly reduced. The approach is established in human medicine for tumors close to the skin surface, and veterinarians have used it on dogs, cats and, in a handful of documented cases, sea turtles. ## Why a snake is difficult Reptile oncology is a thin field. Cancer occurs in reptiles at rates broadly comparable to mammals, but the drug protocols, dosing intervals and diagnostic benchmarks that a veterinarian can reach for have mostly been developed in dogs and cats. Reptiles metabolize drugs differently and far more slowly, and their body temperature depends on their surroundings rather than being internally regulated, which affects how a drug behaves once it is administered. That gap is what makes a case like this useful beyond the individual animal. A tumor sitting on the jaw of a large snake is, from a treatment standpoint, close to the surface and reachable by electrodes, which is exactly the situation electrochemotherapy was designed for. The reasoning that got the team there transfers to other reptiles with accessible tumors. ## How she is now Jodie Foster has recovered and shows no sign the cancer has returned. She is eating and swallowing normally, and staff describe her as back to her ["bright and feisty" self](https://www.birminghamworld.uk/news/chester-zoo-snake-believed-to-be-first-in-the-world-to-benefit-from-human-cancer-treatment-8931364). One case is not evidence of anything in the statistical sense, and her team has been careful not to present it as a cure that now exists for reptile cancer. What it establishes is narrower and still worth having: that the procedure can be performed on a snake, that the animal tolerates it, and that veterinarians facing a similar tumor in a similar species now have a documented precedent rather than a blank page. ## Sources - [Python named Jodie Foster first snake to receive pioneering cancer treatment](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/21/python-jodie-foster-snake-cancer-electrochemotherapy) - [Chester Zoo snake believed to be first in the world to benefit from human cancer treatment](https://www.birminghamworld.uk/news/chester-zoo-snake-believed-to-be-first-in-the-world-to-benefit-from-human-cancer-treatment-8931364) - [Electrochemotherapy: results of cancer treatment using enhanced delivery of bleomycin by electroporation](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12972356/)