News

Professor Kathy Belov, from the University of Sydney, came to visit the TCG this week. Kathy is a colleague working on Tasmanian devils and other Australian species.

Welcome to new TCG group member Dr Tracy Wang, who has joined us today! Tracy will take the role of Lab Manager / Project coordinator. Welcome, Tracy! 

Research from the TCG has been highlighted on the University of Cambridge website in an article entitled “T is for Tasmanian devil”. This article is part of an “animal alphabet” which looks at a selection of different animals featuring in research at Cambridge.

Elizabeth Murchison has been named runner-up for the 2016 Genetics Society of America (GSA) Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award of the Gruber Foundation. The award is to honour the ground-breaking contributions of Dr Rosalind Franklin in genetics research and to inspire and support new generations of women in the field of genetics.

The TCG had a farewell dinner for Jose Tubio, who is returning to Spain next week. Jose will be starting his own group at the University of Vigo. We wished him farewell with (not-so-authentic) Spanish tapas.

A new position is available for a Research Laboratory Technician within the Transmissible Cancer Group. This role is an exciting opportunity to get involved in research on transmissible cancers in both dogs and Tasmanian devils! More information available here:http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/7847/

Congratulations to Andrea Strakova, who has been awarded a £500 prize for delivering the best student talk at the Advances in Canine and Feline Genomics Conference! Andrea’s talk was entitled “Tracing the evolution and worldwide spread of the canine transmissible venereal tumour”. Andrea was also awarded a prize for submitting one of the best stude…

Andrea Strakova and Elizabeth Murchison both gave presentations at the International Conference on Advances in Canine an Feline Genomics and Inherited Diseases, held in Cambridge from 23rd to 26th June. The photo shows Andrea giving her talk, entitled “Tracing the evolution and worldwide spread of the canine transmissible venereal tumour”.

Congratulations to Jose Tubio, who has received a prestigious Ramón y Cajal Fellowship from the Spanish Government. We celebrated at the Eagle Pub, where DNA was announced. This is an enormous achievement, many congratulations, Jose!

Adrian Baez-Ortega, Max Stammnitz and Daniel Martin-Herranz recently joined the Transmissible Cancer Group for summer 2015. Max and Daniel are part of the Cambridge MPhil in Computational Biology, and Adrian is a visiting researcher from Spain. Adrian, Max and Daniel are analysing transmissible cancer genomes in both dogs and devils.

We had a day-long mini-symposium on transmissible cancers with our collaborators at the University of Southampton. On the way home we had Red Velvet cake at King's Cross station.

Dr Jose Tubio joined our group today as a new Postdoctoral Research Associate. Jose will be investigating genome evolution in DFTD and CTVT. Welcome, Jose!

Dr Jose Tubio joined our group today as a new Postdoctoral Research Associate. Jose will be investigating genome evolution in DFTD and CTVT. Welcome, Jose!

Contagious cancers may be more common than expected - researchers from Columbia University have just discovered a third transmissible cancer, affecting soft-shell clams on the East Coast of North America. Clam disseminated neoplasia, a leukemia-like disease, has been known for years and was previously thought to be caused by a virus; but now it is …

A new review entitled “The cancer which survived: insights from the genome of an 11 000 year-old cancer” has just been published by our group in Current Opinion in Genetics and Development! If you would be interested in reading more about canine transmissible venereal tumour and the adaptations which it has acquired as a long-lived lineage, you can…