COSA 2015* Sponsored by:
Speaker: Professor Greg Woods
Content: Since undertaking studies on the Tasmanian devil, major progress has been made in understanding its immune system and how devil facial >tumour disease (DFTD) escapes immune recognition. Involvement with the Devil Facial Tumour Disease has created unique opportunities and research programmes and showed for the first time that devils can produce an immune response to DFTD.
Professor Woods' research interests are primarily aimed at how cancer cells escape detection by the immune system. His major research programme is to evaluate the immune system of the Tasmanian devil and to understand how devil facial tumour disease can be transmitted between devils with the ultimate objective to develop strategies to protect devils from this infectious cancer.
The presentation will focus on the immunology of DFTD, where it originated, how it is transmitted, how the cancer cells avoid activating an immune response when transmitted between devils and the latest in progress towards a vaccine. Find out about this and efforts to re-populate Tasmania's decimated devil population at this seminar to be delivered by the world renowned and award-winning researcher Professor Greg Woods.