Scientists working on saving the Tasmanian Devil have had some success with a recent drug trial.
Four wild devils with a facial tumour disease were treated with a drug made from a Queensland rainforest plant.
Research team leader Stephen Pyecroft, now with the University of Adelaide, says the drug was injected directly into external tumours.
“Within 20 minutes, or half an hour, of that treatment you could see that there was a change in the tumours and within 24 hours at a local site you would see that the tumour had basically been killed,” he said.
The facial tumour disease was first identified in 1996. It has wiped out about 85 per cent of the Tasmanian devil population.
Although the drug successfully killed the tumours, Dr Pyecroft says it has its limitations.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-01/rainforest-plant-could-be-key-to-devil-disease-cure/4791684
“We’ve had response, we’ve had local response around those external tumours but it doesn’t treat those tumours that have already gone walkabout and caused a metastatic disease or a spread of the disease to internal organs,” he said.
It is thought the drug could be used to prolong the lives of nursing devil mothers infected with the disease.
The trial was a joint project between a Queensland company and the Save the Devil Program.