University researchers receive major backing in fight to eradicate fatal parasite
Press release
23 October 2008
By James Smith
A vaccine developed by University of Melbourne researchers at the Faculty of Veterinary Science that could eradicate a form of brain disease responsible for tens of thousands of deaths every year has attracted multi-million dollar funding.
The major cash injection from the British Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation means the vaccine could be commercially available within years.
It would then be used to eradicate a parasite that causes epilepsy and fatal brain disease in many of the world’s poorest countries – the goal a team led by Professor Marshall Lightowlers at the Faculty of Veterinary Science has been striving towards for almost 30 years.
“I’m in a very lucky position that a lot of people dream and talk about, but virtually nobody reaches,” said Professor Lightowlers.
“This disease has been identified as one that could be eradicated from the globe so this is a very significant hurdle which means the end is well and truly in sight.”
University of Melbourne researchers have shown that their vaccine prevents the human tapeworm parasite Taenia solium from infecting pigs.
Although tapeworms can grow up to metres long and live in humans for years without health implications, the eggs they lay can be transmitted in human faeces.
Free-roaming pigs living in close proximity to humans in areas without sanitation become infected with the larval parasite by eating food contaminated with the eggs. Anyone who eats meat from an infected animal that has not been properly prepared could end up with a tapeworm in their gut and the cycle continues.
If a human eats something contaminated with the eggs, they develop neurocysticercosis – cysts on the brain and spinal column, which is the most common cause of acquired epilepsy in the developing world. According to official estimates, 50 million people are affected worldwide, of which 50,000 die every year.
The vaccine will be developed and registered for commercial use by UK-based GALVmed, an organisation dedicated to the development of diagnostics, vaccines and medicines to tackle livestock diseases across the world.
GALVmed has secured US$28m from the UK Government’s Department for International Development and the Gates Foundation for the development of vaccines, of which approximately US$5m is for the Taenia solium vaccine.
For Professor Lightowlers this is a ‘very significant step’ in a process that began at the University of Melbourne in 1980 when he joined a research group studying a form of parasite found in sheep, known as Taenia ovis.
Over the next nine years, they developed a non-living vaccine for the parasite – the first time this had ever been done.
It established Professor Lightowlers and his team as the world’s leading authority in this field and, by 1996, they had shown that their methods could be translated to tackling other forms of parasite.
They switched their focus to the Taenia solium parasite and by 2006 had successfully isolated a gene encoding a protein from the tapeworm eggs that could be used to kill off the parasite. The gene was cloned in bacteria to generate a pure vaccine protein.
Five field trials in four countries have proved so successful that the team has been asked to provide 210,000 doses of the vaccine for a separate US$15.7m project funded by the Gates Foundation in Northern Peru.
They will be used to treat 100,000 pigs in an area where the same number of humans are at risk of contracting the disease in the largest field trial of the vaccine to date.
It will mean Professor Lightowlers and his colleagues travelling to the infected regions where they have already trained local people to carry out the vaccinations; some from countries including Peru and Cameroon are now completing doctorates at the University.
He says the vaccination could ultimately be delivered directly in humans, but developing it to that point would be a vastly more expensive process and one that would become irrelevant if the disease can be eradicated in pigs.
“If we can prove that we can produce the vaccine commercially in a way that works in the field we will be looking at philanthropic groups for whom $100 million or $200 million isn’t a lot of money to pay for the millions of doses needed to vaccinate pigs across the globe,” he said.
For further information please contact the Marketing Manager, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Melbourne, Tel: 8344 7844 or email: vet-communications@unimelb.edu.au