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20 April 2016

Fellowship helps research get a wriggle on

An Advance Queensland Fellowship will enable AITHM researcher Paul Giacomin to extend his investigations into the benefits of parasitic worms for people with coeliac disease.

Dr Giacomin, an immunologist based at the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University in Cairns, will receive a mid-career fellowship to support his research into the use of hookworm proteins to treat coeliac disease.

His Fellowship funds of $300,000 over three years will be matched by $150,000 from the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM) and $150,000 from the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation.

He is one of three JCU researchers to receive Advance Queensland Fellowships at Parliament House in Brisbane today, along with two PhD students who were awarded Advance Queensland Scholarships.

Dr Giacomin’s research focuses on coeliac disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes an inflammatory reaction and severe intestinal symptoms when gluten is ingested.

In a recent trial Dr Giacomin and colleagues were able to demonstrate that infecting coeliac patients with parasitic helminths (worms) enabled them to eat a medium-sized bowl of pasta daily, with no ill effects.

“That amount of gluten would usually trigger debilitating symptoms for anyone with coeliac disease,” he said.

“It might seem like an unlikely remedy, but we know that parasitic worms are able to survive in the human gut by dialling back our immune response. This research puts that ability to work against coeliac disease, which is an autoimmune disorder.”

The Advance Queensland Fellowship will enable Dr Giacomin and colleagues to run a larger study, with 60 participants in a double-blind and placebo-controlled clinical trial at Queensland hospitals.

“It will also support my work on the next stage of this process – isolating the worm proteins that produce the anti-inflammatory effect, and better understanding how they work,” he said.

“Ultimately, I hope to be able to produce a therapy that’s pill-based, which of course will be more palatable to patients than the idea of being infected with worms.”

Dr Giacomin’s research could also shed new light on possible treatments for other inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s and asthma.

Photo caption: Dr Paul Giacomin with parasitic worms. Infecting coeliac patients with hookworms (much smaller than the parasites pictured) enabled them to eat a medium-sized bowl of pasta daily, with no ill effects. Photo: Romy Bullerjahn. Used with permission from JCU Media.

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