Understanding and preventing disease
Understanding and preventing disease
Research underpins our knowledge of disease. Understanding history, sociology, ethics, biology, chemistry and physics is critical to the management and prevention of disease.
La Trobe researchers work in partnership with bioscience institutes, health providers, industry and government to make discoveries in fundamental sciences that improve diagnostics, therapeutics and clinical outcomes across a range of diseases.
La Trobe's research into Understanding and Preventing Disease contributes to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Selected impact stories
Leading Team: Sarah Annesley, Stephanie Gras, Daniel Missailidis, Lesley Cheng
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) effects approximately 260,000 Australians. Worldwide, studies suggest that half of those patients with Long COVID – which effects approximately 10% of individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 - will also meet the criteria for an ME/CFS diagnosis, and the two diseases are clinically similar. But as there is no test to confirm ME/CFS or Long COVID, diagnosis is based on the exclusion of other illnesses that could explain a patient’s symptoms. The result is that many patients go for long periods without a clear diagnosis or an informed understanding of their illness. Several biomarkers – measurable biological characteristics which can differentiate between a diseased and healthy state – have been proposed for ME/CFS and Long Covid, including in high profile publications by researchers at La Trobe (see ME/CFS and Long COVID). However, whilst these biomarkers have been successful in differentiating between those with and without the disease within a specific cohort, none have yet been validated across different cohorts and different laboratories. With funding from the Mason Foundation, La Trobe researcher Sarah Annesley and her team are working on a collaboration with Anna Brooks at the University of Auckland and La Trobe’s Lesley Cheng to identify and test the validity of ME/CFS biomarkers across different cohorts. To give these biomarkers greater sensitivity and specificity, Annesley’s team is also developing multi biomarker approaches, which include and combine multiple markers across gene expression, immune parameters, micro-RNA, and inflammation. This approach is being developed further by Annesley and La Trobe’s Stephanie Gras in a Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) project led by the University of Queensland. This large project will thoroughly characterise blood samples from Long COVID patients and use machine learning to identify the most distinguishing features which can be used to develop a world’s first diagnostic test for Long COVID.
Leading Team: Karla Helbig, Ebony Monson, Alyce Mayfosh (Wintermute Biomedical)
Shingles is a painful and debilitating viral disease likely to affect one in three Australians. Currently it can only be treated with oral antivirals, which must be taken in the first three days of symptom onset and reduce only the duration of the illness. Wintermute Biomedical have developed a therapeutic for topical application – Solexan™ – which will act as an adjunctive therapy reducing the severity of symptoms and associated pain. Research by La Trobe’s Prof. Karla Helbig and Dr Ebony Monson has now identified the antiviral mechanism operating in Solexan™, which blocks entry of the virus into host cells.
Solexan™ is currently midway through Phase IB clinical trials with promising results, and La Trobe’s findings will enable Wintermute to pursue FDA approval for a Phase II trial in 2026. Wintermute are also exploring options for commercial pharmaceutical development, and investigating the potential of Solexan™’s underlying antiviral mechanism to combat other diseases.
Leading Team: Natalie Amos
In May 2018, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General announced a global call for action to eliminate cervical cancer. It is predicted that Australia will be amongst the first countries to achieve this, but in order to do so, it is vital that policy, practice and research professionals ensure that all under-served populations are included, as the most significant risk factor for developing cervical cancer in Australia is never accessing or under accessing cervical screening. With funding from the Cancer Council Victoria, La Trobe researchers have performed a secondary analysis of data from Private Lives, Australia’s largest national survey of LGBTQ+ adults, which is carried out by La Trobe’s Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society. This secondary analysis has identified the make-up of under-served populations among LGBTQ+ people with a cervix, with those least likely to access cervical screening including trans men, lesbian, gay and asexual people, those with a disability, and those from non-English speaking countries. It has also identified factors associated with increased screening uptake: affirming, LGBTQ-inclusive healthcare and an open and trusting relationship with a GP. The findings suggest a need for facts-based conversations which dispel myths about how the HPV virus which causes cervical cancer is spread and the production of health promotion material that is inclusive and intelligible. The outcomes of the project have been presented to research leads at the Cancer Council Australia, and to the Department of Health’s Screening and Cancer Prevention team. They have been used by the Cancer Council Victoria to help shape their public health messaging and support their use of gender-neutral language, and have been presented to GPs in Western Australia to help them understand the barriers to accessing screening services amongst the LGBTQ+ population so that they can tailor their practice and engagement with patients.
Leading Team: Eliza Hawkes, Jodie Palmer, Alexandra Romano
Follicular Lymphoma (FL) is a type of slow growing blood cancer that affects lymph nodes and the lymphatic system, parts of the immune system that are integral to fighting disease. As patients with FL are predominantly aged over 65 and may require treatment multiple times over their disease course, novel regimens which maintain or enhance efficacy and minimise toxicity are highly desirable. The TOP-FLOR trial (NCT05788081), led by the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute (ONJCRI) in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb, is investigating a new combination of immune system activating therapies to see how effective this combination is in patients who have had no previous drug treatment for their Follicular Lymphoma. The trial aims to reduce treatment side effects and improve long-term treatment effectiveness for patients.
Leading Team: Oliver Klein, Jodie Palmer, Kylie Wilkie, Andreas Behren, Jonathan Cebon
Whilst rare cancers make up more than 20% of all cancer diagnoses, they are individually very rare (~2/100,000), and treatment options for patients are limited. Challenges to accessing clinical trials and new treatments related to rare cancers are particularly acute for Australians living in rural, regional and remote areas (a third of Australians). The MoST CIRCUIT trial for advanced rare cancers is led by the Olivia Newton John Cancer Research Institute (ONJCRI). Thanks to ONJCRI’s collaboration with the ReViTALISE project, Omico MoST program, Minderoo foundation and Australian Teletrial Program, the trial has provided access to patients in regional and rural areas who would not normally have accessible treatment options. Building on findings from an earlier 120 patient study, 240 Australian and New Zealand patients have been enrolled, with the aim of identifying and confirming a clinically effective treatment for rare cancers using the immune stimulating anti-cancer drugs Ipilimumab and Nivolumab. In 2023, the Rare Cancer Leadership Team at ONJCRI were awarded the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) Alliance’s Outstanding Changemaker award.
Leading Team: Jacqueline Orian
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system which can cause symptoms ranging from numbness and weakness to an inability to walk. It affects over 30,000 people in Australia. The mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration, or nerve loss in MS are not well understood. La Trobe researcher Jacqueline Orian established a new paradigm for understanding the mechanisms behind MS by asserting that platelets play a neurodegenerative as well as neuroinflammatory role, opening the possibility of using novel strategies for platelet-targeted treatments to tackle the disease. Orian and her team developed a new laboratory model that better represents the disease, tweaking the induced neuroinflammatory disease known as experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) to slow its rate of progression in mice. By studying this model Orian and her team confirmed the entry of platelets into the brain and spinal cord and found that platelets are drivers of inflammation and neurodegeneration. In collaboration with Professor Peter from the Baker Institute and with funding from MS Australia, the Orian laboratory demonstrated that a novel drug (originally created at the Baker Institute to treat atherosclerosis) specifically targeting disease-associated platelets can halt disease progression. Given that inflammation is fundamental to autoimmune diseases (including rare diseases), platelet targeting drugs have broad therapeutic potential which Orian is now focussed on investigating.
Read more about the Orian Neurodegenerative diseases Research Group
Leading Team: Nick Reynolds
Dr Nick Reynolds – a member of the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science - has spent 15 years researching protein aggregation, in which damaged proteins bind together into masses known as amyloids. Amyloids are the molecular hallmark of a number of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. But in 2022, Reynolds and collaborators from Swinburne University of Technology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, ETH Zurich and the University of Luxembourg published a paper in Nature Communications which was one of the first to propose the role of aggregated amyloid proteins in triggering the neurological effects associated with COVID-19. The paper contributed to the development of a new field of enquiry in relation to virus development, in which amyloid structures and the associated inflammation that they cause had previously been overlooked. With funding from the EU Joint Programme on Neurodegenerative Disease research (JPND), the group of collaborators, led by Josh Berryman from the University of Luxembourg, formed CovAmInf, an international working group whose function is to advise the European Union on the developing research and understanding of novel coronavirus SARS-COV-2 infection, amyloid diseases, and chronic inflammation, so that this science can be used to shape scientific priorities and public policy in the future. The group recently published SARS-CoV-2 infection as a cause of neurodegeneration in The Lancet: Neurology, a summary and analysis of clinical data from the past five years.
Leading Team: Andreas Behren and Ashleigh Poh
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in Australia. It is rarely detected early due to the lack of a screening program, with 80% of patients presenting with inoperable metastatic disease. The lack of access to tissue has limited researchers’ ability to study lung cancer, improve outcomes and overcome the greatest challenge in relation to metastatic lung cancer, which is the development of resistance to treatment. The Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute ONJCRI (La Trobe University’s School of Cancer Medicine) is leading a $4 million project Tissue Repository of Airway Cancers for Knowledge Expansion of Resistance (TRACKER) to create Australia’s first advanced lung cancer biobank with funding from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Futures Fund (MRFF) and in kind support from project partners and supporters across Australia.
The project was conceived and developed by clinician-scientists Dr Tracy Leong and Dr Sagun Parakh (Austin Health), researchers at the ONJCRI (Associate Professor Andreas Behren, Head of the Tumour Immunology Laboratory and project lead, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Ashleigh Poh), the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (Dr Stephen Wong) and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI). It has been co-designed and developed by consumers with lived experience from the onset. Their impact can be seen in the design of the non-surgical and a minimally invasive approach to acquiring samples through endobronchial ultrasound, liquid biopsies, and the collection of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, providing valuable biospecimens for research in cases where patients would not have undergone surgical biopsies. These samples will be collected over the course of a patient’s cancer journey, from initial diagnosis and throughout their treatment, providing a unique longitudinal bio and data bank which will allow researchers to investigate the dynamic changes in cancer behaviour under treatment pressure leading to treatment resistance.
Collection and research sites for TRACKER include hospitals in Victoria, New South Wales , Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia which will build on the number and type of samples available for analysis. Samples will be logged in a virtual biobank, making them available to researchers on request for analysis. All applications are reviewed by the consumer committee to ensure that the projects align with the interests of patients. The data generated by research using biobank samples must also be shared and fed back into the biobank database so that it can be accessed for future research, avoiding the siloing of information. Making the samples available to centres and researchers nationally leverages collaborative expertise in analytics and infrastructure. All samples are collected, stored and processed in such a way that they can be analysed using any methodological approach, allowing centres to generate results using specific analytical approaches - genomics, transcriptomics, epigenetics, and proteomics – which can then be integrated and harmonised as a multi-omics dataset through the biobank with the aim of more rapidly identifying novel biomarkers and targets for therapeutic approaches.
Leading Team: Begona Heras and Jason Paxman
Antibiotics have proved revolutionary in the treatment of disease and infections, but their use places an evolutionary pressure on bacteria to adapt and survive, increasing rates of antimicrobial resistance and raising fears of the next pandemic. Research led by Professor Begona Heras at La Trobe University is investigating innovative methods for combatting major WHO declared pathogens through understanding virulence factors – the molecular weaponry of pathogens which allow them to evade and resist treatment - at the molecular scale. A particular group of proteins Heras is investigating are involved in the development of biofilms – structures which protect bacteria from antibiotic activity and which are responsible for up to 80% of persistent infections in humans. In this context, Heras’ patented discovery of the role of a key autotransporter protein in biofilm formation and the development of molecules that inhibit this scaffold protein that block biofilms opens up the possibility of developing further inhibitors which can be used against pathogens which carry these proteins, including E. coli, the primary contributor to anti-microbial resistance related deaths in humans. The goal of this approach is not to kill or stop the replication of bacteria (as with antibiotics), but rather to disarm the pathogens so that they can be cleared effectively by our immune system.