(May 2007)

The Devils Facial Tumour Disease is only one of three known cancers that are contagious. It's extremely rare that a cancer will act this way. Most cancers are not transmittable and cannot be passed on. Cancer cells in one individual are completely different to another individual. If cancer cells are transfered they are instantly rejected and destroyed by the immune system.

With the Devil Facial Tumour disease this rule doesn't seem to apply and it was feared that the Tasmanian Devil may have a problem with their immune system as the Devil immune system was not recognising the cancer and producing antibodies to fight it.

Investigations were held at the Menzies Research Institute, led by A/Prof Greg Woods, to see if the Tasmanian Devils immune system was fully functional.

Blood samples were taken by PhD student, Alex Kreiss and he was able to confirm that the Tasmanian Devils have a strong and fully functional immune system with the correct mix of white blood cells and lymphocytes which is the key cell in the immune system.

So why then is the cancer not being identified and rejected by their immune system. Test have been undertaken to identify whether Devils have the correct gene to allow recognition of foreign cells. This was performed by mixing lymphocytes from many Devils to see if they reacted to each other. The results clearly showed that the Tasmanian Devils failed to recognise cells from other Devils as different.

Alex Kreiss

This provides strong evidence that a lack of genetic diversity contributes to why the cancer is infectious. When a healthy devil is infected with a devil facial tumour from another animal, the infected devil's immune system assumes that the new cancer cell are the same as its own cells and will not reject it.

So now the team needs to find a way to make the devil's immune system recognise the cancer cells as hostile and destroy the cancer cells.

(May 2007) Spotlighting surveys are taken each year to help determine the Tasmanian Devil Population as to whether is in increasing or decreasing across the state. Previous research conducted by Dr Claire Hawkins from DPIW showed there was a Statewide decline of more than 40 percent in sightings per survey route from 1992-95 to 2002-05. By incorporating the 2006 date into this analasis it indicates that the Devil population is continuing to decrease Statewide. The latest estimate of the decline of Tasmanian Devils since the first report of the disease is now at 53 percent. In specific areas where the disease has been recorded the longest the decline is more dramatic. In the north east of the state, where the disease was first reported the sightings have declined by 89 percent from 1992-95 to 2002-05