Future Therapy
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The new $66 million UQ Centre for Clinical Research located at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital will house around 300 specially selected researchers focused on patient orientated research, conducted in response to questions that arise “at the bedside”.
The seven-storey purpose-built UQCCR complex is funded by a partnership with the Queensland Government and major US philanthropic organisation The Atlantic Philanthropies.
Professor Nicholas Fisk, formerly Professor of Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine at Imperial College London, has been appointed Director of the new Centre. A Sydney medical graduate, Professor Fisk has a stellar international reputation in medical research in the fields of fetal and maternal health, stem cell biology and translational medicine.
He previously headed London research centres focused on fetal medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology. Professor Fisk’s research, on topics ranging from clinical research to stem cell research, has been published in numerous high quality research publications.
Some of the exciting research already under way at the Centre includes the extraordinary results of an in-utero stem cell treatment, which could lead to a new treatment for babies with brittle bones, as well as a range of other disabling conditions. Professor Fisk said the work held potential for improving treatment of other disabling conditions such as muscular dystrophy and congenital brain diseases.
Brittle bone disease or Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), as the inherited disease is known, affects babies while they are inside their mother’s womb. This is because collagen, one of the main building blocks for bone, fails to develop properly and leads to weak bones and stunted growth.
The disease is detected by DNA testing or ultrasound before birth. These outstanding results published in the journal, Blood, suggest, with further research, this treatment could be translated to human babies in pregnancies affected by OI.
Dr Yolande Harley, of charity Action Medical Research, which funded the project, commended Professor Fisk’s work as a real breakthrough.
Professor Fisk said the research had shown “a profound therapeutic benefit” of intrauterine stem cell therapy. “Our work suggests, in the future, it could be possible to take stem cells from an unborn baby carrying the abnormal OI gene, manipulate them to correct the errant gene and then put them back into the fetus to allow it to develop properly,” he said.
Another study has found the existing research and development and business model of the pharmaceutical industry was failing pregnant women.
Professor Fisk and Professor Rifat Atun (Imperial College London) describe pregnancy as a virtual “pharma-free zone” in a policy paper published in PLoS Medicine. Their analysis of an industry database that tracks drugs under development since 1981, showed only 17 drugs were under active development for maternal health indications and only one new class of drug has been licensed in the last 20 years. (This was not in Australia or the United States).
“The study demonstrates a ‘drug drought’ in maternal health,” Professor Fisk said. The paper outlines how the pharmaceutical market’s “push” mechanisms (funding to encourage investment from universities and companies) and “pull” mechanisms (funding to purchase drugs once they are on the market), relevant to the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of providing affordable essential drugs in developing countries, have not been effective in the area of maternal health.
“One of the reasons pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to test and develop drugs in pregnancy is to avoid the litigation costs that come with the risk of birth defects and disfigurements,” Professor Fisk said. “Between the pull and the push, the international donor agencies have also forgotten these women.”
Story author: Marlene McKendry
 INTERNATIONAL renown ... Professor Nicholas Fisk |
