This 15-Foot Python Is the First Known Snake to Receive Electrochemotherapy for Cancer. Now, She’s Officially Free of the Disease

The pioneering treatment makes it easier for traditional chemotherapy drugs to penetrate cancer cells. After the procedure, the reptile, named Jodie Foster, made a speedy recovery

Margherita Bassi | Daily Correspondent

August 24, 2026 1:31 p.m.

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England’s Chester Zoo is home to a very special 15-foot reticulated python. She is the first known snake to receive electrochemotherapy to help treat her cancer. And thanks to that therapy, she is now disease-free.

The python, which arrived at the zoo about 20 years ago, is named after the actress Jodie Foster because of the initials “JF” for juvenile female on her intake paperwork. But around two years ago, she stopped eating as much and became lethargic. Her keepers found and removed a malignant tumor from her jaw, but another grew in its place about a year later.

The tumor was making it increasingly difficult for Jodie Foster to eat, which was threatening her life, according to a statement. But another surgery on its own likely wouldn’t have saved her.

“We decided to go a little bit to the drawing board of what we were going to do,” Charlotte Bentley, a veterinarian at Chester Zoo, tells Helena Burke for the BBC’s “Global News Podcast.” “That’s when we came up with the idea of doing a surgery and combining it with electrochemotherapy to give her the best outcome.”

Electrochemotherapy involves applying short, intense electrical pulses to the cancer site. The bursts make diseased cells more penetrable, allowing better absorption of traditional chemotherapy drugs. It was first used in humans in the 1990s, and today, creatures like cats and dogs can receive it, too.

To treat Jodie Foster—a member of the longest snake species—veterinarians and keepers had to get creative. They pushed two operating tables together to accommodate Jodie Foster’s 110-pound body. She was anesthetized during the 90-minute surgery, and heated blankets and warmed air kept her body temperature stable.

“We were able to remove part of her jaw, and then we placed some chemotherapy medication into the remaining tissue,” Ian Ashpole, a conservation veterinarian at Chester Zoo, tells the Associated Press in a video. “And then we performed the electrochemotherapy, which is where we place some little metal electrodes into the tissue, and we gave them some electric pulses. And that helps open up the cancer cells basically to improve the intake of the chemotherapy drug.”

'World-first' cancer treatment saves python after tumour destroys part of her jaw

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The procedure took place in October of 2025. Since then, the giant reptile has made a complete cancer-free recovery. After the operation, her mouth rapidly healed, and she quickly resumed her typical diet and started putting on weight, Ashpole tells the AP. She is once again her “bright and feisty” self, per the statement.

“Electrochemotherapy is an emerging treatment, and this was the first time it had been used in a snake,” Jose Alvarez Picornell, a veterinarian at the University of Liverpool in England who participated in the snake’s treatment plan, says in the statement.

“We were able to develop a plan that not only benefited Jodie Foster but will also contribute to the wider veterinary community,” he adds. “We will be formally publishing details of the procedure so that veterinary colleagues around the world can learn from and build upon our approach.”

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.