Ruth Pye

Dr Ruth Pye is a veterinarian from Brisbane. She first became interested in transmissible cancers while working for a street dog sterilisation program in India. The program's core work was desexing dogs and vaccinating them against rabies, but any dogs with canine transmissible venereal tumours were also treated.
Ruth moved to Hobart in 2013 to start a PhD with the Tasmanian devil immunology group at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania. The overarching goal of the group is to develop a protective vaccine against the transmissible cancer, devil facial tumour disease, which is decimating the Tasmanian devil population. The research group studies the devil's immune system, DFTD and how the two interact.