Australians are leading the way when it comes to medical and scientific breakthroughs set to change the world.

STEM CELL THERAPY

Australia’s leading stem-cell expert Professor Alan Trounson, now head of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, says a cure for HIV is a realistic prospect.

Human trials are planned for two promising techniques that aim to armour the immune system against the AIDS virus without the need for lifelong antiviral drugs.

Both techniques on trial seek to remove or disable a receptor – CCR5 – on the surface of immune cells that HIV uses to infect them. The idea is that blocking this entry point will stop HIV from reproducing whilst leaving the immune cells unharmed.

The research is inspired by Timothy Brown, who is thought to be the only person ever to have been ‘cured’ of HIV after a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukaemia.

Mr Brown’s doctor in Berlin chose a donor with a gene mutation that meant he lacked the CCR5 receptor. Professor Trounson believes the transplanted immune cells not only successfully treated the leukaemia but prevented attack from the HIV hiding in Brown’s tissues. This ultimately allowed him to stop taking daily antiretroviral drugs.

Researchers now hope to induce a similar response in other HIV-infected patients by isolating blood stem cells from the patients’ own bodies, artificially changing their genes in the laboratory so they share the mutated CCR5 receptor.

‘It will take another six to seven years before it gets into general public use, if it all works properly,’ Professor Trounson says.

DIABETES

People suffering severe Type 1 diabetes are sometimes able to benefit from a transplant of pancreatic cells called islets. However, many of these insulin-producing cells die shortly after transplant, so patients have to go back on insulin. According to Associate Professor Jenny Gunton, from the Garvan Institute and Westmead Hospital, researchers have discovered a means of improving the survival of these cells. By treating the islets with a drug that boosts production of the HIF-1 alpha protein (a master regulator of cell survival) before transplantation, their survival rate improves significantly. The drug is already approved for human use.

ANTIBODY OF WORK

Australian researchers may soon be helping to save the lives of cancer patients around the world. Dr Daniel Christ and PhD students Kip Dudgeon and Romain Rouet, of Sydney’s Garvan Institute, have found a way to create antibodies stable enough to be used in drugs that will meet the stringent standards of drug regulatory authorities.

With antibody-based drugs for treating cancer and inflammatory conditions one of the fastest- growing areas of the pharmaceutical industry, the research is a significant global breakthrough.

CURBING CANCER?

Scientists at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne have found a way to set off a chain of cellular events that kills cancerous blood cells, while leaving healthy cells largely unharmed.

The first human trials, which will focus on advanced blood cancers such as lymphoma and leukaemia that have not responded to other treatments, are underway.

PAIN RELIEF

Some people suffering serious or terminal illnesses cannot tolerate morphine, compromising their levels of pain relief and compounding their distress.

Professor Richard Lewis, of the University of Queensland, is using a $7.6 million grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council to develop a drug based on toxins from Cone snails. His team’s collaboration with researchers in Australia, Japan, the US, UK, China and Germany has already seen one of their findings progress to clinical trials.

HIV HOPE

Another ground breaking trial in search of a cure for HIV is underway in Melbourne thanks to a collaboration between The Alfred Hospital, Monash University and the Burnet Institute. About 20 HIV-positive patients in Victoria will test the ability of a drug to ‘wake up’ the virus in the cells where it lies dormant, away from the reach of current anti-HIV drugs.

The theory, says The Alfred’s Infectious Diseases Unit director Professor Sharon Lewin, is that the reawakened virus would kill the cell it inhabits, thereby self-destructing.

‘We know from the first 10 patients that the treatment was safe and relatively well tolerated and didn’t cause any harm to people,’ Prof Lewin says.

‘Now we are doing the more detailed studies to see whether we have woken up the virus.’

Anti-HIV drugs are unable to completely eradicate the virus because it burrows deep into the DNA of immune cells, especially in the lymph nodes or gut, where it gets stuck and goes to ‰Û÷sleep’.

Prof Lewin’s team tested a treatment belonging to a group of drugs called histone deacetylase inhibitors. The drug, Vorinostat, is one of two in the group already licensed to treat cancer.

Associate Professor David Anderson, of the Burnet Institute, has also produced a simple and inexpensive blood test for HIV patients that is now being trialled in the US.

A SIGHT TO BEHOLD

This year further testing will take place on the world’s first bionic eye technology, meaning the gift of sight may soon be bestowed on those with hereditary blindness and macular degeneration.

Last year, doctors from Bionic Vision Australia implanted a 24-electrode device in a position behind the retina of Dianne Ashworth, who suffers retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited cause of blindness. Once the electrodes were switched on, Ms Ashworth reported seeing flashes of light and different shapes in front of her eye.

Another five patients have since been implanted and doctors are monitoring their progress.

Bionic Vision Australia chairman, Professor David Penington, says the results of Ms Ashworth’s surgery fulfilled expectations.

‘It gives us confidence that, with further development, we can achieve useful vision,’ he says.

The objective is to help people with certain types of blindness see large objects such as buildings or cars. Researchers are also working on a device that could help patients recognise faces and even read large print.

RAY OF HOPE

Former Australian of the Year, Professor Ian Frazer, who developed the world’s first cervical cancer vaccine, hopes to create another vaccine to eradicate skin cancer. He has received a Bupa Health Foundation Award to fund his research into the role viruses may play in predisposing patients to developing squamous skin cancer. ‰Û÷In my lifetime we should be able to remove the threat of skin cancer from the next generation,’ the University of Queensland immunology professor says.