A 15-foot cancer patient at England's Chester Zoo just made medical history—by being a snake. Jodie Foster, a roughly 110-pound reticulated python whose name was inspired by the initials "JF," for juvenile female, on her intake form, became the first known snake treated with electrochemotherapy after a jaw tumor made eating increasingly difficult, Smithsonian reports. Veterinarians combined surgery with the technique, which uses short electrical pulses to help chemotherapy drugs better infiltrate cancer cells.
The team pushed two operating tables together for the 90-minute procedure, removed part of her jaw, dosed the surrounding tissue with chemotherapy medication, then zapped it with electric pulses. "And that helps open up the cancer cells basically to improve the intake of the chemotherapy drug," veterinarian Ian Ashpole tells the AP. The treatment was first used in humans in the 1990s and is now also used on cats and dogs, Smithsonian reports.
"We were facing the possibility of losing her as the tumor made it more and more difficult for her to eat, so we worked with cancer specialists to see whether we could adapt electrochemotherapy for a snake," Ashpole says, per the Guardian. "As far as we're aware, this is the first time it's ever been used in one." Since the October 2025 operation, the zoo says the 23-year-old python has healed well, regained weight, and is "back to her usual bright and feisty self." A check last week confirmed that the cancer had not returned. Vets plan to publish details of the procedure to help colleagues around the world.
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