The Tassie devil story: Double dose of a devil disease

The Tassie devil story: Double dose of a devil disease

The Tassie devil story: Double dose of a devil disease (3120)

Greg Woods ¹

Menzies Research Institute Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia

The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii). is a carnivorous marsupial only found in Tasmania. Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) refers to transmissible cancers in Tasmanian devils. Cytogenetics has established that DFTD is a clonal neoplasm. DFTD is a transmissible cancer originating from a Schwann cell. It is transmitted by biting and is invariably fatal. DFTD has killed more than 80% of the Tasmanian devil population.

Once the DFTD cells have been transmitted, they develop into a cancer without inducing an immune response. But how can the transmitted cancer cells avoid activating an allogeneic immune response? Multiple immunological tests indicate that the Tasmanian devil has a competent immune system. The DFTD cancer cells avoid allogeneic recognition because they do not express MHC-I molecules on the cell surface.

Devils immunised with killed DFTD tumour cells in the presence of adjuvants can produce an immune response against the DFTD cells. This has been refined to overcome the down-regulation of MHC-I, which is expressed when DFTD cells are treated with IFN-γ. Preliminary results provide encouraging evidence that devils immunized with DFTD cells treated with IFN-γ consistently produce an immune response. This has led to the world’s first trial of devils vaccinated against DFTD and released into the wild.

Although transmissible cancers are extremely rare we recently discovered a second transmissible cancer in Tasmanian devils. This second cancer is grossly indistinguishable from those caused by the original DFTD. However, this second cancer bears no detectable genetic, cytogenetic or histological similarity to DFTD.

Authors contributing to this abstract.

Woods, G

Professor Greg Woods completed an undergraduate degree in 1978, BSc(Hons) at Monash University, a postgraduate degree at the University of Tasmania, in 1984 (PhD), and was awarded a founding Fellowship of the Faculty of Science, Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia in 2011. He worked as a research scientist in Toronto, Canada; London, England and Edinburgh Scotland. His current appointment is Principal Research Fellow, Menzies Research Institute, University of Tasmania and Professor of immunology, School of Medicine, University of Tasmania. He teaches immunology to medical and medical research students and supervises postgraduate and research students. In 2012 he was nominated as one of the School’s inspiring lecturers. Research interests have included Photoimmunology, specifically the effect of sunlight on the developing skin immune system and the influence of vitamin D. Most of his research is now devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) where progress has been made in understanding the immune system of the Tasmanian devil and how this cancer escapes immune recognition. The research is paving the way towards a vaccine against DFTD. In 2011 as part of the five-member team ‘The Devil’s Advocates’ he was awarded the Sherman Eureka Award for Environmental Science. In 2015 his life-long contribution to research was recognised the Australian Society for Medical Research when he was awarded their ‘Certificate in Recognition of the Distinguished Service to Medicine, Science and Community.’ In the past ten years, Professor Woods has been awarded more than $2 million in research funding, including NHMRC and ARC grants. He has published over 90 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has supervised approximately 20 PhD students to completion.

The Tassie devil story: Double dose of a devil disease (3120)

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