Promoting, Improving and Maintaining the World's Health

The young and the elderly are the most susceptible to parasitic diseases, both in the developed and the developing world.

To address this, the Network will focus on the development of new vaccines and treatments for local and global populations and the creation of new technologies to monitor and prevent contamination of waterways with infectious stages of zoonotic parasites (one of the world’s principle causes of disease).

The specific objectives of the Network are to enhance and focus Australia’s parasitology research effort to:

• Better understand host-parasite relationships; and
• Discover and develop sustainable parasite control strategies.

Case Study : The Human Hookworm Initiative

Dr Alex Loukas, Queensland Institute of Medical Research

Hookworms infect almost one billion people in developing countries throughout the world. Adult hookworms live in the intestine where they bury their heads into the mucosa and feed on blood. Clinical symptoms of hookworm disease are most notably iron deficiency anaemia, a direct consequence of blood loss from feeding adult parasites. Anthelmintic drugs are effective however re-infection rapidly occurs soon after treatment. A vaccine is therefore an urgent requirement. Hookworm infection is a seriously debilitating disease in its own right, but in addition, the general state of immune suppression that these worms induce is likely to have an effect on vaccine programs being developed for other human infectious diseases, notably malaria, HIV, TB and leishmaniasis.

The Helminth Biology Laboratory at Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) in Brisbane, is headed by Dr Alex Loukas, and the lab is intimately involved with the Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative (HHVI). The HHVI is primarily run out of George Washington University (Drs Peter Hotez and Jeffrey Bethony) and The Sabin Vaccine Institute, Washington DC, USA. The HHVI is funded by an $US18 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. The Helminth Biology lab at QIMR is partly funded by the HHVI to identify protective antigens and express them in eukaryotic hosts (insect cells) for vaccine trials and human immunoepidemiologic studies.

Candidate antigens have been identified from infective hookworm larvae and blood-feeding, adult worms. Proteins secreted by larvae during their transition to parasitism, and proteolytic enzymes used to digest host haemoglobin (haemoglobinases) are major targets of what will likely be a multi-protein cocktail vaccine. Vaccine studies in animal models and complimentary human immunoepidemiologic correlates have highlighted the potential efficacy of a number of proteins, one of which will proceed to Phase I clinical trials in the near future.

Current Project Funding