Fighting Tasmanian devil facial tumours with a virus. The Tasmanian devil is threatened by a transmissible facial tumour. This project aims to leverage the unexpected finding that a poxvirus infects d

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Fighting Tasmanian devil facial tumours with a virus. The Tasmanian devil is threatened by a transmissible facial tumour. This project aims to leverage the unexpected finding that a poxvirus infects devil facial tumour, but not normal devil cells and in doing so, discover failures in anti-viral pathways in devil tumours that also provide insight into lost anti-tumour mechanisms. Expected outcomes include knowledge of how devil tumour cells shut down immune processes that limit their growth, and the development of poxviruses as a single dose oncolytic therapy for devil facial tumours. The benefits of this project include a new understanding of responses by marsupial cells to viruses and cancer and essential laboratory progress towards a potential treatment for devil facial tumour disease.. Scheme: Discovery Projects. Field: 3107 - Microbiology. Lead: Prof David Tscharke