Vaccines save millions of lives every year. But that’s not enough for Griffith scientists – because they want to save many millions more. What if we didn’t need needles? What if we didn’t need freezers? What if we could make vaccines cheaper? And what about all those diseases that don’t have vaccinations yet?
Making vaccines better – and making completely new ones – isn’t easy. It’s complex, expensive and challenging. Disease has a way of throwing new obstacles into your path. But here on the Gold Coast, land of the Kombumerri peoples, part of the Yugambeh language region, the work never stops. The impact it could make – both locally and globally – is just too great.
Make it quick
Over at the Brisbane South (Nathan) campus, on the land of the Yugarabul, Yuggera, Jagera and Turrbal peoples, Professor Bernd Rehm, Professor Bernd Rehm, Principal Group Leader at the Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics and Laboratory Director at the Centre for Cell Factories and Biopolymers, together with his research team, has created a way to make vaccines more adaptable, cheaper and easier to distribute.
How does it work? The team create teeny polymer particles and then ‘stick’ components of any targeted pathogen to them. “The particles stabilise the vaccine and make it very robust – allowing us to mass-produce it very quickly,” says Rehm. “In some cases, a vaccine might not need to be kept cold, making it ideal to use in low-resource settings where pandemic scenarios often emerge.”
The team aren’t hanging around: they’re already using the method to develop a flu vaccine which can be administered via a drop in your nose rather than a needle. That’s great news if you don’t like needles – plus, first trials have shown that it’s a more efficient way to deliver the shot.
And they’re also working on vaccines against three pathogens seen as major threats to the world right now: Q fever, bacterial infection melioidosis – which recently resurfaced in the Northern Territory due to the floods – and tularemia, or ‘rabbit fever’. And they are developing a malaria vaccine which will not just prevent the disease in humans but will also stop malaria parasites developing in the mosquito which bit them.
The next crucial step is funding for human trials. “Our platform won’t be a solution for every infectious disease,” says Rehm. “But I strongly believe, based on the extensive animal data we have, that we will have a great opportunity to control quite a few infectious diseases where existing vaccines are not performing, or where no vaccines exist.”
Malaria resistance
In 2023 alone almost – mainly children under five and pregnant women, mostly in Africa. Associate Professor Danielle Stanisic, a Research Leader and Principal Research Fellow, isn’t having that. She’s determined to find a way to stamp out the scourge of malaria from her lab on the Gold Coast, land of the Kombumerri peoples, part of the Yugambeh language region. As mosquitoes become more resistant to insecticides and to existing antimalarials, the problem is getting worse.
Of course, malaria vaccines exist – but they’re only partially effective. Most only use small parts of the malaria parasite in their vaccines, and target the parasite stage that the mosquito injects into the skin, which then develops in the liver. So Griffith’s team are taking a different approach called PlasProtecT®. It contains the whole parasite in the vaccine and targets the point at which the parasite is in the bloodstream – in other words, the stage that’s responsible for symptoms and death.
And part of the malaria vaccine challenge is getting vaccines to the people who need them. That means vaccines must be easy to transport and store in places where the electricity supply can be unreliable or non-existent. Incredibly, PlasProtecT® can be turned into a powder and freeze-dried.
“You could keep it on the shelf for a couple of months. Or, if you had to keep it in the fridge and your fridge went off for a week, you wouldn’t have to throw it all out,” says Stanisic. Her team will be carrying out a Phase 1 trial in Melbourne/Naarm this year and then hopes to undertake a Phase 2 trial in an area where malaria is common, such as Southeast Asia or Africa.
Saying no to Strep A
But what about diseases that might not make the headlines but still have a terrible cost? The Gold Coast campus, land of the Kombumerri peoples, part of the Yugambeh language region, is a busy place: that’s also where Professor Michael Good, Head of the Laboratory of Vaccines for the Developing World, and Associate Professor Manisha Pandey are working on targeting two health conditions with their Strep-A vaccine.
Strep A, or Group A Streptococcus, is a common bacterium that can cause infections, ranging from tonsillitis to rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. In É«ÇéÍøÕ¾, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have the highest rate of the disease in the world, with as many as 300 people dying every year.
Initial news on this vaccine is promising. Good and Pandey have just completed a first-in-human trial in Canada: its First Nations community has 10 times the rate of Strep A than the rest of the population. “Initial data shows it induced a very potent immune response to the organism,” says Good.
The next stage of the research is to do another human study in Melbourne/Naarm later this year, at a specialised facility where people can be vaccinated and given a direct inoculation. If that’s successful, the team wants to then test the vaccine in a thousand children across É«ÇéÍøÕ¾. Good is hopeful the vaccine will become standard, helping to prevent tonsillitis, rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in the future.
“Every five years or so, the human race is exposed to a new germ,” says Good. “Most aren’t globally important – but COVID-19 was. We will face a lot of infectious disease challenges by 2050 and vaccines are the safest and easiest way to prevent infection.”
This research will save lives – and you can be part of it. Find out more about giving to Griffith.
Image captions (top to bottom)
- Associate Professor Danielle Stanisic.
- Bernd Rehm.
- Michael Good.
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