The Save the Tasmanian Devil Program has high hopes for the development of a vaccine against DFTD. If the research succeeds, it could provide information and techniques useful in fighting human cancers as well. As we’ve learned, DFTD can ravage its victims because their immune cells don’t recognize the cancer cells as “other,” so these cells just keep dividing and dividing until they kill the host. And in the meantime, chances are that the victim has passed DFTD cells on to other devils, perpetuating the cycle and devastating the devil population.
I’ve looked forward to visiting with cancer researcher Greg Woods to see how he’s doing with his important work. After meeting him in his office, we travel to the town of Richmond, where some experimental devils are kept on a farm. Their pens are smaller than those at Trowunna, but they vary in architecture to provide the animals with some variety in their surroundings.
We arrive just as it’s time to take blood samples from devils Adam and Sparrow. The scientists are testing compounds called adjuvants that were added to immunizations (shots) to help “wake up” the devils’ immune systems. These devils were given the experimental immunization some weeks ago in the hope that the combination will stimulate their immune systems to make antibodies on their own. Then, two weeks ago, Adam and Sparrow were given an injection of the antigen the scientists want their immune systems to react to. The scientists will check the blood that’s being drawn today to see if these devils’ systems have produced antibodies in response to the antigen.
Veterinarians Ruth Pye and Alexandre Kreiss will draw the blood samples. They trap the first devil, Adam, and transfer him to a table in a burlap bag. They locate his head within the bag, then place an anesthesia cone over his muzzle through the bag. They attach a monitor to Adam’s ear to keep track of his heart rate. Once Adam is unconscious, Alexandre takes a blood sample. Alexandre checks Adam’s gums to make sure they are nice and pink, indicating that the blood is flowing well. He shows us Adam’s strong, impressive teeth—devils’ canine teeth continue to grow throughout the animals’ lives because they often break when they feed on bones. After the exam and blood draw, Alexandre gives Adam oxygen by way of the cone and massages him to help him wake up. Once Adam is awake, Alexandre and Ruth return him to his pen, watch to make sure he’s okay, then move on to repeat the procedure with Sparrow. When the work is finished, the family that runs the farm gives us a taste of good fresh cider, then we head back to Hobart.
After lunch in town with Greg Woods and some students, I go with him to visit the lab. In order to participate in any lab activity, the rules require that you wear a lab coat, so I put one on. The concern is that you could spill something dangerous on your clothing in the lab, like a disease culture, and it could end up leaving the lab with you. Greg shows me the warm incubators where cultures of different kinds of devil cells are grown. He explains how important it is to maintain the correct temperature and humidity inside.
He removes one of the cultures and quickly closes the incubator door. Then he puts the culture under the microscope and gets the cells in focus. “Here, take a look and let me know what you see,” Greg says.
I sit down and adjust the focus a bit for my eyes. It feels good to be looking into a microscope in a lab once again—it’s been a long time since I’ve done that!
“What do these cells look like?” Greg asks.
“They look pretty evenly spaced and connected to one another,” I reply.
“Good,” he responds. “These are normal connective tissue cells. Now I’ll show you three other cultures.”
The cells in the second culture don’t look as connected but they still have an orderly appearance; these are normal Schwann cells. Next he shows me a third culture with more chaotic cells that don’t seem to be connected; these cells come from the first type of devil facial tumor that was discovered, which originated in Schwann cells. Last, Greg shows me a chaotic culture of cells that do look connected; it consists of cells from the second kind of tumor, which began in a different type of tissue.
“I see why you were confused at first by the cells in the last culture when you saw them,” I comment. “They definitely look different.”
“Yes, that’s when we suspected there was yet another kind of facial tumor out there,” Greg answered.
Greg talks about his hopes of developing an effective vaccine that can help protect insurance-population devils from the disease when they are introduced back into the wild. There is only one way to find out if this treatment will work, and that is to use the vaccine on some animals and release them into places where they will be exposed to DFTD. “We realize we could be putting these animals at risk of getting sick if the vaccine doesn’t work, but this is really our only way to find out whether it’s effective or not,” Greg says.