Respiratory Archives

Professor Phil Hansbro on 60 Minutes

Professor Phil Hansbro, Director of the Centenary UTS Centre for Inflammation has featured on the current affairs program 60 Minutes, explaining his critical research on bushfire smoke, its impact on the health of Australians and how his work could potentially lead to new prevention and treatment strategies.

“What we’re trying to do is to work out the important effects of bushfire smoke on your health and how it potentially affects different people in different ways– such as healthy people, people with asthma and emphysema, older people and those who are pregnant and their offspring,” said Professor Hansbro.

“Once we have this knowledge, we can then evaluate possible prevention and treatment measures including use of new anti-inflammatory drugs that may be able to help alleviate the effects of excessive smoke inhalation,” he said.

The full 60 Minutes story, titled ‘The Big Smoke’, can be accessed online (in two parts) via the Nine Network’s website.

A short video of Professor Hansbro on 60 Minutes can also be accessed on Twitter.

Prime 7 News interviews Professor Phil Hansbro

Professor Phil Hansbro, Deputy Director at the Centenary Institute and Director of the Centenary UTS Centre for Inflammation has been interviewed by Prime7 News on his new study that will be focused on exploring the health impacts of people’s exposure to bushfire smoke.

The study, a collaboration between the Centenary Institute and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), will assess how bushfire smoke affects the airways, lungs and other organs and will determine what the long-term consequences of this exposure could be.

Click here to view the Prime7 news story online.

Click here to find out more about Professor Hansbro and his respiratory and inflammation based research.

Pathway to eliminating antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis in the Pacific

Australian researchers, including from the Centenary Institute have been awarded funding for a major project that aims to eliminate both active and latent tuberculosis (TB) found on Kiribati, an island nation in the central Pacific Ocean. The project will also support multidrug-resistant TB control education and management through the Pacific region.

Led by Professor Barend Marais of the University of Sydney, Professor Warwick Britton AO, Head of the Centenary Institute’s Tuberculosis Research Program will be a Chief Investigator (CIB) on the project with colleagues from the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Tuberculosis Control.

“A TB hotspot, Kiribati has extremely high rates of tuberculosis. The capital Tarawa, one of the most densely populated areas in the Pacific, has a TB incidence rate among the highest in the world,” said Professor Britton.

“Our project will ensure that every person over the age of 2 will be screened for TB disease or infection in Tarawa with appropriate treatment strategies then implemented. Our integrated project will also provide a pathway towards drug resistant TB prevention and TB elimination more broadly within the Pacific, through a program of training and mentoring.”

“Overall, this program will be a catalyst in regional TB elimination efforts, helping save lives and overcoming a disease which has devastating impact on communities,” he said.

The Federal Government’s announcement regarding the project funding can be accessed online.

TB is a leading cause of death globally responsible for approximately 1.5 million deaths annually.

Read more about Professor Britton and his research here.

Image Credit: Vladimir Lysenko. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39278217

Impact of bushfire smoke on health to be studied

Understanding the long-term health impacts of bushfire smoke will be the focus of a new study being undertaken at the Centenary Institute and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

The study, funded by the Medical Research Future Fund’s (MRFF) Bushfire Impact Research grants program will seek to better understand the physiological impacts of prolonged bushfire smoke exposure, to improve health outcomes for Australians.

Professor Phil Hansbro, Deputy Director at the Centenary Institute as well as Director of the Centenary UTS Centre for Inflammation was the successful recipient of the grant and will be leading a team of specialist respiratory disease researchers and clinicians on the project.

“The true extent of bushfire smoke on people is still largely unknown,” said Professor Hansbro. “We just don’t know the full impact on people resulting from prolonged smoke inhalation or if short term effects resolve after the exposure ends. There is a real knowledge gap as to what level of smoke exposure is likely ok and what level may lead to adverse health effects, particularly for the more vulnerable in our society.”

For this study, the research team will explore the short and prolonged physiological effects of bushfire smoke using mouse models and primary human cells and tissues. Assessed will be how bushfire smoke affects the airways, lungs and other organs and what the long-term consequences of this exposure could be.

Potential smoke impact on healthy individuals and those with common pre-existing respiratory disease such as asthma, emphysema and lung cancer will also be explored. “Ideally from our study, we’ll be able to help define safe levels of bushfire smoke exposure across all of these population groups,” said Professor Hansbro.

The researchers will then use their findings to evaluate new prevention strategies and treatment measures. This will include the appraisal of anti-inflammatory drugs already in pre-clinical development that can be taken to help mitigate the effects of excessive bushfire smoke inhalation. The aim is to implement the study findings into practice, as quickly as is practically possible.

Professor Hansbro is grateful for the opportunity provided by the federal government.

“Bushfires and smoke are a constant feature of the Australian environment and will continue to impact many of us, whether in the bush, towns or larger cities. Our research will lead to improved knowledge in this critical area ultimately leading to improved health and wellbeing outcomes for many Australians,” he said.

More information on the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund and its funding of research into the health effects of bushfires can be found online.

Read the full media release here.

Respiratory research leader elected as Fellow

Centenary Institute Deputy Director and Director of the Centenary UTS Centre for Inflammation, Professor Phil Hansbro has been elected as a Fellow of the European Respiratory Society (ERS).

The Fellow of ERS award recognises excellence in contributions to research, education and clinical leadership in respiratory medicine.

“The European Respiratory Society is one of the leading respiratory health organisation’s globally and I’m extremely proud to have been recognised with this honour,” said Professor Hansbro.

“I look forward to acting as an ERS ambassador and providing my input as a Fellow in support of the Society’s ongoing mission to promote lung health in order to alleviate suffering from disease,” he said.

Professor Hansbro will be formally introduced as a Fellow at the virtual ERS International Congress, taking place in September, 2020.

Further information on the award can be found here.

Centenary Institute receives Cancer Council NSW grants

Cancer Council NSW has awarded funding to 14 ground-breaking cancer research projects including three to the Centenary Institute.

Successful Centenary Institute recipients and their research initiatives are:

Professor Geoff McCaughan, Head of the Centenary Institute Liver Injury and Cancer Program. Project: A new approach to target liver cancer.

“Liver cancer is one of the deadliest cancers and is the sixth leading cause of cancer death in Australia. Current therapies for advanced liver cancer are limited and generally only grant a few months of added survival time for the patient. This project will investigate the use of combination therapies for treating liver cancer – an approach which has not yet been widely investigated. We will be using two potential new drug treatments that will target the cancer cells, the surrounding blood vessels and the immune system within the tumour,” said Professor McCaughan

Professor John Rasko AO, Head of the Centenary Institute Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Project: Monitoring and predicting clinical response to immunotherapy against pancreatic cancer and asbestos-induced lung cancer.

“Pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma (asbestos-induced lung cancer) are among those cancers currently lacking effective treatments, resulting in poor outcomes with five-year survival rates of less than 10%. More than 3,000 and 700 new cases of pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma, respectively, are annually diagnosed in Australia. This project will use the body’s killer immune cells (T-cells) and endow them with the information as to how to recognise and attack cancer cells (an approach known as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy),” said Professor Rasko.

Dr Ulf Schmitz, Head of the Centenary Institute Computational BioMedicine Laboratory within the Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program and University of Sydney. Project: Deciphering the cross-talk between microRNAs and retained introns in cancer gene regulation.

“This project will investigate a regulatory process known as ‘intron retention’, in both breast cancer and leukaemia. The process allows unwanted ‘junk DNA’ to enter the cell and interfere with other regulatory processes. Intron retention has been found to play a critical role in cancer development, but little is known about the underlying mechanism. Computer models and experimental methods will be used to establish how this process works, potentially opening up an entirely new field of cancer research,” said Dr Schmitz.

The Centenary Institute wishes to thank Cancer Council NSW for their support of our researchers who continue to pursue life-changing and life-saving medical research.

Full details of all successful Cancer Council NSW grants are available online here.

Influenza susceptibility linked to variable responses to interferons in the lung

Researchers at the Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney have discovered a key reason as to why the influenza virus is so effective at establishing infection and causing damage in the lungs.

They found that a group of lung-cells, following influenza infection, responded only poorly to interferons (the signalling proteins that help defend the body against viral attack). The research could pave the way for the development of new and improved anti-influenza drugs and vaccines, to both improve health and to save lives.

“Interferons are critically essential to our defence against pathogens including the influenza virus,” said Associate Professor Carl Feng (pictured), senior study author from the Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney. “The proteins are so named because they ‘interfere’ with the ability of viruses to multiply in the body.”

“It’s been known for a long time that during influenza, lung cells and immune cells in the lungs secrete interferons causing virus-infected cells to initiate anti-viral defences,” said Associate Professor Feng.

“However, how interferons actually undertake this protective activity is still not understood because the signalling proteins can act on hundreds of different types of cells in our body,” he said.

In their study, Associate Professor Feng and colleagues have generated a new tool to identify which cells respond to interferons in influenza infected mice. The goal was to work out whether the outcome of infection and interferon signalling differed between different cell types. What the researchers have demonstrated in the study is that not every cell type reacts equally to the interferons, even when they are in close proximity to each other.

“We were able to show that cells in influenza-infected mice reacted to interferons in dissimilar ways. Most notably, we found that one type of lung cell, the major target of the influenza virus, responded extremely poorly to interferons and were highly vulnerable to viral infection. This was particularly noticeable at the early-stage of the influenza infection cycle,” said Associate Professor Feng.

The research has the potential to lead to the development of new vaccination strategies and therapeutics that are more effective than the currently available anti-influenza drugs.

“Influenza remains among the most significant global infectious diseases owing to its high infectivity, the variable usefulness of current vaccines and the limitations of anti-viral therapy. It’s also a major health burden in Australia and globally,” said the Centenary Institute and University of Sydney’s Professor Warwick Britton, also an author of the study.

“A better understanding of how this virus infection is controlled by lung cells can help us to find medical solutions against influenza which results in millions of cases of severe illness and which is responsible for killing up to half a million people each and every year,” he says.

The investigators plan to study human lung-cells and their response to interferons and the influenza virus as a next-step of the research program.

Read the full media release here.

Read the publication in Cell Reports here.

NSW Asthma Meeting hosted at Centenary Institute

The Centenary Institute and UTS have come together to jointly host the 15th Annual NSW Asthma Meeting held at the Centenary Institute, 18-19 November 2019.

The meeting provided research and clinical attendees with an overview of areas of importance in asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and airways research. It also provided those present with the opportunity to develop new, and to strengthen, ongoing collaborations in an informal setting.

Invited speakers were Professor Corry-Anke Brandsma, Professor Irene Heijink and Professor Machteld Hylkema (all from the University Medical Centre Groningen, the Netherlands) as well as Dr Annalicia Vaughan (University of Queensland). All four spoke on topics specific to COPD.

These talks were complemented with presentations from post-doctoral fellows, senior PhD scholars, postdocs and students, including from the Centenary UTS Centre for Inflammation, to highlight current hands-on research being conducted. The Centenary Institute’s Dr Stefan Oehlers, Head of the Immune-Vascular Interactions Laboratory spoke on zebrafish as an effective model for mycobacterium infection.

Conference Committee Chair and Centenary Institute Deputy Director Professor Phil Hansbro noted the success of the two day Meeting.

“This Meeting brings scientists and clinicians together from some of the premier asthma and respiratory research groups in Australia and New Zealand to share knowledge and foster collaborations. We had a fantastic two days of talks, break-out sessions and networking–all focused on advancing our science in this critical health space. The depth of knowledge in the room made for an extremely absorbing and productive meeting,” he said.

The Meeting was supported and sponsored by AstraZeneca and GSK.

Centenary Institute research boost with NHMRC Investigator Grants

Professor Philip Hansbro, Deputy Director at the Centenary Institute and Professor John Rasko AO, Head of the Centenary Institute’s Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program have both been awarded prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grants. The Investigator Grants scheme is one of the NHMRC’s new flagship funding arrangements supporting outstanding health and medical researchers.

Professor Philip Hansbro’s funding will support further research into the development of new preventions and treatments for chronic respiratory diseases.

“Respiratory diseases are among the leading causes of all deaths world-wide,” says Professor Hansbro.

“This grant will fund our research into developing a comprehensive ‘molecular map’ for specific respiratory diseases including Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), lung cancer and severe asthma. This will increase our knowledge of how these diseases develop and progress, providing us with new opportunities to attempt treatments and cures.”

Professor John Rasko AO, Head of the Centenary Institute’s Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program and Head of Department, Cell & Molecular Therapies at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital will receive funding for his research focused on driving clinical cell and gene therapy in Australia.

“Harnessing the power of our body’s own cells and genetic therapies, we are witnessing a medical revolution in curing serious diseases including hereditary bleeding and anaemia as well as specific forms of cancer. This new federal funding will facilitate our internationally acclaimed basic and clinical research Program designed to improve the health of Australians”, says Professor Rasko.

Read the full media release here.

Leading respiratory scientist recognised for research excellence

Professor Phil Hansbro, Deputy Director and Faculty at the Centenary Institute has been recognised for outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge in respiratory medicine and science.

Professor Hansbro accepted the Research Medal at the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and Australian and New Zealand Society of Respiratory Science Annual Scientific Meeting (TSANZSRA) on the Gold Coast.

“It is a huge honour to receive this award. It means so much to me coming from this society. We have amongst us the best respiratory researchers in Australia and indeed the world. I attend the major respiratory conferences around the world and the quality and importance of the work that Australian researchers do is as good as anywhere and we certainly punch way way above our weight in Australia,” said Professor Hansbro on accepting the award at the Meeting’s Gala Dinner tonight.

Read the full Media Release.