New weapons in the war on infectious diseases

Thursday 7 June 2012

Media Release

New weapons in the war on infectious diseases

The Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) has announced $65.2M of government research funding investment into issues that impact most heavily on the health of New Zealanders.

One of the greatest threats to public health is from infectious diseases, both through epidemics of new infections and the increasing resistance of existing pathogens to almost every weapon in the antimicrobial arsenal. This year the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) has funded exciting research in this area, tackling some of the most immediate and concerning issues.

Professor John Fraser and his team at The University of Auckland are actively combating these issues with their programme of research aimed at better understanding the mechanisms that allow microbes to infect, and survive in, the human body. The HRC has just allocated a further $4.9 million dollars to extend this research programme for another three years. The team are targeting three organisms: Staphylococcus aureus (a common cause of hospital-acquired infections, able to shield itself effectively from immune system defences), Streptococcus pyogenes (the cause of many diseases including rheumatic fever and necrotising fasciitis, also adept at invading the immune response of its host) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the most common cause of tuberculosis. With the knowledge the research team can gain from studying the entire genome of these pathogens they will work on new ways to protect against infection and develop new treatments that they have not acquired the ability to resist, including vaccines.

Rheumatic heart disease is the focus of research by Dr Clarie McLintock from the Auckland District Health Board. Rates of rheumatic fever in Māori and Pacific Island peoples are among the highest in the world and, consequently, Māori are 22 times more likely and Pacific peoples 75 times more likely than New Zealand Europeans to have rheumatic heart disease. The extra workload for the heart in pregnancy means that both mother and baby are at risk of adverse outcomes. Dr McLintock will gather valuable evidence to improve the clinical care and outcomes of women with rheumatic heart disease and their babies in New Zealand. This is one of three of the HRC’s Emerging Researcher First Grants (ERFG) will that
will built research capacity to fight infectious diseases, as well as garnering valuable knowledge and testing interventions.

Mikael Boulic of Massey University, Palmerston North will use his ERFG to trial a solar-powered ventilation system in low-decile schools to improve the air-quality in colder months when the windows cannot be opened. He expects that this will protect children from exposure to high levels of pathogens and pollutants in the air and lead to fewer respiratory infections.

ERFG recipient Matloob Husain from the University of Otago, Dunedin, is working on another major threat to public health – influenza. A global influenza pandemic in the foreseeable future is a certainty, and the mobility of modern populations means that it may well be on a scale never before experienced. Preparing for this is a priority for most developed nations. The influenza virus has the ability to constantly mutate and acquire resistance to the antiviral drugs used to treat it. In order to survive and multiply in an infected person, the virus interacts with the host’s body to sustain its lifecycle. Dr Husain’s work aims to better understand one specific enzyme which is involved in the life-cycle, HDAC6. Through understanding the role of this enzyme in supporting the life-cycle of the influenza virus, the team will be able to contribute to new treatment strategies.

-Ends-

© Scoop Media