Clinical trials are under way in Australia, China and the United States to test vaccines using technology developed by University of Queensland researchers against cervical cancer and genital warts.
The partners in the collaborative project believe the work could benefit millions of people, especially women at risk of developing cervical cancer after HPV infection. Cervical cancer claims 300 lives and 1100 new cases in Australia each year. HPV affects one in three people sometime in their lives. Many people are unaware they have been infected.
Centre director Professor Ian Frazer said 50 to 60 percent of sexually active people acquired the infection, which was difficult to eradicate and was also linked to genital tract cancer.
"The virus is good at evading the immune system and normal defences against infection," he said.
The vaccines result from research conducted over the past 14 years by the University's Centre for Immunology and Cancer Research (CICR) in the Medicine Department at Princess Alexandra Hospital.
The centre last month with CSL Limited won an Australian Technology Award for excellence in developing biotechnology and pharmaceutical technology.
Currently there are no licensed vaccines available to parenterally treat diseases caused by human papillomaviruses (HPV) infection, namely cervical cancer and genital warts.
The 50-scientist University of Queensland team has developed a multi-pronged approach to managing HPV infection and associated conditions. The work targets preventing human papillomavirus or treating infected tissue.
o Professor Frazer said vaccines to prevent infection were based on patented non-infectious "virus-like" particles (VLPs) and these were currently under clinical trial in the United States. VLPs are similar enough to the real virus to stimulate an immune response. However, they don't have the virus genes and so cannot produce the diseases of warts or cervical cancer.
In 1995 following a year of negotiations, major agreements were signed involving UniQuest Pty Ltd, the University's technology transfer company; Melbourne-based pharmaceutical manufacturer CSL Limited; and the vaccine division of Merck and Co. Inc., of New Jersey, United States, the world's largest pharmaceutical company. Merck is conducting safety and immunogenicity studies with two of the four vaccine strains in young college students. It is hoped that the final vaccine will have a 95 percent coverage against the HPV strains which cause cancer.
o The Centre is additionally testing an experimental vaccine containing virus-like particles as therapy for genital warts in collaboration with colleagues at Wenzhou Medical College in the People's Republic of China.
"The first trial in China suggests benefits to patients, with a strong immune response from three quarters of immunised patients," Professor Frazer said.
o A third set of clinical trials is underway in Brisbane to test an experimental vaccine to treat cervical cancer, developed in collaboration with CSL Ltd. This vaccine aims to provoke an immune response in patients to the E7 viral protein expressed in cervical cancer, killing the cancer cells directly.
Professor Frazer said the UQ researchers were the first to conduct clinical trials using the E7 protein.
"The first and second pilot studies are about to finish which hopefully will give an indication of the vaccine's effectiveness," he said.
Professor Frazer said the researchers had a competitive edge in an international scientific war against HPV. Medical research teams in Cardiff, Wales, and Leyden, Netherlands, and Maryland, USA, are using different scientific approaches against the virus. However, Professor Frazer's team is believed to be the first to develop an approach to the development of a vaccine using virus-like particles.
In addition to the CSL funding, the University of Queensland project has been supported by the National Cancer Institute of the United States National Institutes of Health in Maryland, since 1992. It is also being supported by groups including the National Health and Medical Research Foundation, the Australian Research Council, Queensland Cancer Fund, the University of Queensland, Princess Alexandra Hospital, and the Lions Kidney and Medical Research Foundation.
For further information, contact Professor Ian Frazer, telephone 07 3240 5315.
