Clonally transmissible cancers in dogs and Tasmanian devils

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• Dr Elizabeth P. Murchison, Department of Veterinary Medicine.
• Wednesday 07 March 2018, 14:00-15:00
• MR4, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Wiberforce Road, Cambridge.

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Cancers arise via positive selection for somatic mutations driving clonal proliferation and invasion. Although cancers can metastasise and disseminate throughout host tissues, most cancers remain confined within the body of the individual that spawned them. Rarely, however, cancers can become naturally transmissible via adaptations for the direct transfer of living cancer cells between hosts. In mammals, only three such naturally occurring transmissible cancer clones are known. Two cause transmissible facial tumours in Tasmanian devils, and are spread between hosts by biting; these cancers are rapidly fatal and are threatening their host species with extinction. The other clone causes genital tumours in dogs, and is spread between animals during mating; this cancer has spread around the world, and is the oldest and most divergent cancer lineage known in nature. I will describe our recent research using genetics to understand the the origins and evolution of these diseases.

This talk is part of the Computational and Systems Biology series.

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