This is a small but critical first step towards developing an oral bait vaccine to protect Tasmanian devils from devil facial tumours! Congratulations to PhD student Ahab Kayigwe for leading this study. We hope to have this published in a peer-reviewed journal in the near future, but for now you can read the preprint here. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.29.493930
We are hoping to have this published in a peer-reviewed journal in the near future. More importantly we are already working to improved the baits for better delivery to devils.
Click here for the preprint article: Evaluation of oral baits and distribution methods for Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.04.13.486902
Watch a quick video to learn more about the value of studying immunology in new species and in real-world environments. Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abb8664
Checkout this explainer video above and read the open access paper here: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba5031
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The picture is of a Tasmanian devil for those of you that have only seen Taz from @WBLooneyTunes
Title: Tipping the balance from tolerance to anti-cancer immunity in Tasmanian devils
Project description:
A transmissible cancer first identified in 1996 has been the primary driver for an 85% decline in wild Tasmanian devils. Recently a second type of transmissible tumour was discovered in wild devils and further threatens the long-term persistence of wild Tasmanian devils. These two transmissible tumours offer a unique opportunity to learn how tumours avoid being killed by the immune system, and the knowledge we acquire from studying these transmissible tumours could have help us to understand cancer and transplant rejection in humans and other species. We have recently developed cutting-edge molecular tools (i.e. recombinant cytokines and checkpoint molecules) for studying and manipulating the devil immune system. The goal of this project will be to assess functional responses of tumour cells and immune cells to cytokines and manipulation of checkpoint molecule and cytokine signalling pathways at the RNA and protein levels. Bioinformatics skills are highly desirable, but not essential.
Aims:
1. Determine most effective methods for stimulating anti-tumour immune responses using
existing tools.
2. Identify novel immune evasion pathways using RNA-seq
Supervisor:
Dr Andy Flies (andy.flies@utas.edu.au)
ARC Discovery Early Career Research Fellow
