Our Laboratory Programs
For every single disease we have in the world today what doctors really want is a way to prevent you from getting sick or to find quick and easy ways to treat you if you do get ill. Phew, easy to say but no so easy to do!
Yuk, it’s a bug!
Before we do find a cure for an disease like a viral infection, scientists have to ask a whole stack of questions like – how does the bug infect you, is it through the air or is it by eating or drinking? What is the bug made of and how does it multiply? When a virus gets into your body what does it do first? There are so many things to find out and that’s why research costs so much.
Game On!
Once infected, a battle of wits often begins between the patient’s immune system and the infecting organism or tumor. The immune system tries to eliminate the bug by firstly recognising what’s unique about it, such as the sugars and proteins on its coating. Once identified, the immune system then goes about making antibodies and killer T-cells to eliminate it. But many of these organisms, like malaria and some cancers for instance, have ‘lots of tricks up their sleeve’. They can divert, turn off and generally confuse our immune system allowing bugs to go about their business of infecting the body and causing illness.
Where do you start?
Well, once we’ve identified the ways bacteria, viruses and parasites infect our bodies and grow and reproduce; or why cancer cells grow out of control to form tumors, then we can try a whole range of ways to stop them. This could be by developing new drugs to treat them or by making a vaccine to prevent the infection or the tumor growing. One of the ways to do this is by manipulating our immune system to help it better fight these diseases.
What is Burnet doing about it?
One of the areas the Burnet Institute is working on is developing a range of vaccines to protect against a many killer viral, parasitic and bacterial diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, HIV, encephalitis, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and tuberculosis. Another very important part of our work is developing a therapeutic vaccine for cancers such as breast, ovarian, prostate, lung and colon cancer. A brief outline of examples of our work are listed below......
Burnet has programs focused on studying the basics of virology ; how these viruses cause disease ; how we can develop vaccines ; cancer ; and inflammatory diseases like Rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
Some examples of our laboratory-based work
Development of vaccines for measles and bird flu. Infectious diseases are responsible for around 11 million deaths each year. Burnet scientists are working on the development of a range of vaccines for these diseases to reduce the impact of these infections here in Australia and overseas. Most commonly used vaccines have to be kept cold, are administered by injection, which requires skilled staff, needles and syringes, and safe disposal facilities. The development of a new generation of vaccines that do not have these requirements is the focus of a major research program at Burnet. Some of our work aims to develop vaccines that are heat stable and do not require injection. Heat stable vaccines that can be taken by mouth, instead of by injection, are likely to be more widely used and will reduce the death rate from infectious diseases such as measles and bird flu. As an added bonus they will also be less painful than the traditional jab! The oral measles vaccine project and the bird flu vaccine program involve the insertion of a part of the measles or bird flu virus into a plant, such as lettuce or other plant. Burnet scientists have shown that fresh and freeze dried lettuce that contains this part of the measles virus can generate an immune response when tested in the laboratory. The vaccine once in the plant can be freeze-dried and turned into a powder. This powder can then be mixed into a paste or pressed into a capsule that can be taken orally. Plant-made oral vaccines still have to go through the usual clinical trials before they will be ready for use, but, the potential for these vaccines to provide a safe, cheap and easy to distribute alternative to injectable vaccines is huge.
Developing rapid diagnosis of diseases. One important part of Burnet’s research is to develop ways of diagnosing people with a disease quickly, accurately and cheaply. Our scientists have developed rapid diagnostic tests that use just a single finger prick of blood to determine if they have an infectious disease like hepatitis. These tests can be used in the doctor’s surgery to quickly determine what treatment is required.
HIV laboratory research at Burnet is focused on understanding how the virus replicates and infects cells so we can find new ways of stopping the spread of the virus or preventing cells from becoming infected. This is done in a number of ways such as the development of a vaccine, the development of new drugs, the development of new approaches such as microbicides ie gels that kill the virus. We also are trying to find out where in the body the virus resides so we can specifically target those cells with new drugs. With more than 40 million people infected with this virus, it’s critical that we find a way of stopping its spread and treating those already infected.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a very debilitating disease which usually affects younger people – often occurring during their thirties. However, one in six Australians of all ages and backgrounds have some form of arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is caused by a malfunction in the immune system and is distinct from osteoarthritis, which is inflammation of the joints caused by wear and tear. We’re using a range of highly sophisticated technologies to research possible causes of rheumatoid arthritis and to design chemical drugs, and to modify proteins to use as new therapies that intervene early in the development of RA.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease which affects a significant number of people (1 in 3000), most of them women. The disease is classified as an ‘autoimmune disease’ which means that the body’s immune system mounts an inflammatory attack upon itself, and as a result, various organs of the body may become inflamed, and fail to function normally. This inflammation can be on-going but the intensity can occur in episodes.
Inflammatory episodes of Lupus affect organs such as the kidney, skin, lung, heart and blood. While good management can control lupus symptoms, risk of kidney failure and cardiovascular disease is still significant. New approaches to lupus treatment are clearly needed and scientists at the Austin campus of the Burnet Institute are developing new strategies to combat this debilitating illness.
Cancer is being addressed at the Burnet Institute is through medical research is focused on using the immune system of the patient to recognise and fight a cancer. Many solid tumor cells (such as those in some breast cancers) produce a protein known as mucin 1, by enhancing the memory of certain white cells in the body such as dendritic cells to recognise these mucin1 producing cells, we are aiming to develop a vaccine to boost the immune system which will result in the eliminate of the cancer cells.
To find out more about the Burnet Institute's work, just visit our website here.
