A new research centre with cutting-edge technology has been established to help fight inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and improve the health of Australians.

The Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) for Chronic Inflammatory Diseases combines the formidable expertise of research groups from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at The University of Queensland (UQ), the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and multinational drug company AstraZeneca.

Chronic inflammatory diseases affect hundreds of thousands of Australians and include rheumatoid arthritis - the most common auto-immune disease - emphysema and chronic bronchitis. These kinds of diseases are major causes of disablement in Australia, significantly contributing to national health expenditure.

Head of the CRC's Queensland node Professor David Hume said the focus of the Queensland group was 'systems biology', in which researchers attempted to use the knowledge gained from the human genome project to identify all the components needed to make a biological system work.

"This is an exciting chapter in biological research at UQ, a chapter that potentially translates into improved human health and valuable intellectual property for Queensland," Professor Hume said.

"The Queensland group is particularly interested in macrophages, large white blood cells forming the first line of defence against infections and tumours, literally killing and eating them.

"Unfortunately the destructive potential of macrophages also causes most of the damage in inflammatory sites such as the joints of arthritis sufferers."

The capability of the cutting-edge, micro-array technology used in this research at the IMB's Special Research Centre for Functional and Applied Genomics allows for the analysis of tens of thousands of genes in a single experiment.

"This is a complete revolution from the situation only a couple of years ago when such analyses could only be conducted one gene at a time," Professor Hume said.

"It shows us what happens at the genetic level when a particular cell type such as a macrophage is produced in the body and how these cells respond to an environmental challenge.

"We can fully analyse the function of macrophages, identify the genes that may code for drug targets and start to understand how macrophages respond when a drug is applied.

"This technology will speed up identification of drug targets and also enable us to identify possible side-effects at an early stage in development."

Progress in this area has been greatly advanced by the signing of a collaborative research agreement with the RIKEN Genome Science Centre in Yokohama, Japan, allowing access to its massive resources in gene identification and analysis.

Professor Hume recently returned from a visit to Yokohama and said he was confident this agreement would further scientific exchanges between the two countries.

"The establishment of the CRC node at UQ will also enable much greater collaboration with AstraZeneca R & D Griffith University, leading to further applications of Australian biodiversity in drug development," he said.

"UQ has also invested in a new Microarray Computational Biology Unit to impart some order into the chaos of thousands of data-points and offer extensive database support for the massive amounts of experimental data generated."

The Unit is the first site in Australia with the Silicon Genetics program, GeNet® and Analyzer® from MolecularWare, database and microarray analysis programs greatly reducing the labour associated with analysing micro-array data. Professor Hume said the emphasis on computing reflected the new face of biology as an information science.

Research team
(Qld node of CRC­CID)
Professor David Hume www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/humeda.html,
Dr Timothy Ravasi
Dr Ian Ross www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/rossil.html,
Dr Dimitry Ovchinnikov www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/ovchinnikovd.html, and
Dr Pawel Listwan

Funding
A total of $16.6 million will be provided over a period of seven years

Email
CEO: Professor John Hamilton
jahamuni@unimelb.edu.au
Deputy Director: Professor David Hume
d.hume@imb.uq.edu.au

Program leaders:
Associate Professor Gary Anderson
g.anderson@pharmacology.unimelb.edu.au
Associate Professor Paul Hertzog
Paul.Hertzog@med.monash.edu.au
Dr Glen Scholz
glenms@unimelb.edu.au

Web link
Further information about Professor David Hume's laboratory can be found at:
www.imb.uq.edu.au/groups/hume

On this site

Go to top