Welcome to the Transmissible Cancer Group at the Department of Veterinary Medicine!
Our goal is to understand the evolution and host interactions of transmissible cancers. Cancers are outgrowths of abnormal cells driven by a malignant evolutionary programme and supported by a permissive tumour microenvironment. Most cancers arise from and remain within the bodies of their hosts. Rarely, however, cancers may escape their hosts, defy immunological barriers, and spread through populations. Only three such transmissible cancers are known among mammals, affecting dogs and Tasmanian devils. We seek to understand how such cancers arise, how they evolve, and how they escape the allogeneic immune system.