Connor McHugh completed his honours under the supervision of Prof. Alex Loukas at James Cook University. He focused on the small-scale development of potential novel therapeutics from the secretome of human hookworms Necator americanus. He continued working within the Loukas lab group at JCU, undertaking his PhD. The current project is a continuation of the work completed during his honours. His PhD focuses on creating and screening a recombinant protein library from the secretome of N. americanus for developing immunoregulatory protein with potential novel therapeutic benefits in Type 2 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease.
“Necator americanus recombinant proteins as novel therapeutics for inflammatory disease”
Experimental and naturally acquired human helminth infections have been shown to impart varying degrees of protection against a suite of inflammatory diseases. The proclivity of helminths to regulate their host immune response and suppress inflammation is attributed to the active release of excretory/secretory proteins (ESP) into the host tissues. Experimental infection of humans with helminths presents significant complications as a therapeutic modality due to their complex lifecycles, likely poor adoption, and unavoidable side effects in some subjects. As such, there is now considerable interest in identifying bioactive ESPs and making them more drug-like. Therefore, we created a recombinant library of N. americanus ESPs from both the adult and larval stage secretomes. We are screening the library in various in vitro and in vivo assays to identify proteins with potent immunoregulatory properties. Thus far, we have identified proteins that could form the basis of novel therapeutics for treating type 2 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis based on their in vitro and/or in vivo bioactivities.
Dr. Tanapan Sukee is a postdoctoral researcher at Melbourne Vet School, University of Melbourne. Her Honours and PhD research with Professors Abdul Jabbar and Ian Beveridge focussed on taxonomy and understanding the biodiversity of a large group of nematodes parasitic in Australian macropodid and vombatid marsupials. Dr. Sukee’s thesis on the ‘Systematics of strongyloid nematodes parasitic in Australian marsupials’ combined traditional morphological studies with molecular approaches to describe new species and contribute to advancing fundamental knowledge in wildlife parasitology. In her current role, Dr. Sukee has extended her fundamental research to include the study of trematodes – starting with the liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica.
“Cloacinid nematode parasites of Australian marsupials; from molecules and morphology to ecology”
This seminar will showcase the diversity of the Cloacinidae, a family of gastrointestinal nematodes parasitising Australian herbivorous marsupials including the kangaroos, wallabies and wombats. An overview of historical and current understanding of their morphology, ecology recent advances in molecular phylogeny will be presented, in addition to future areas to address beyond species discovery.
Our ASP Online Seminar Series image is created by Thorey Jonsdottir.
