http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=news&subclass=local&story_id=240822&category=General+News&m=7&y=2003

Boost for vaccine in doctor's lost work
By DANIELLE CRONIN
Monday, 14 July 2003

A Canberra researcher's life work, which was largely ignored for about 20 years, could revolutionise the recipe of vaccine.

Canberra Hospital and Cuban researchers are collaborating on a project to produce stronger, safer vaccines using 76-year-old Dr Peter Cooper's research.

Dr Cooper said he made the breakthrough in the early 1980s but could not spark vaccine manufacturers' interest or secure a patent.

"There were doubting Thomases who thought it was impossible," Dr Cooper said.

"I'm absolutely delighted that the research is being used to do something useful. I'm only sorry that it has taken so many years."

Canberra Hospital senior endocrinologist and University of Canberra Professor Nickolai Petrovsky said Dr Cooper's lost research was promising.

The Canberra team was working with researchers from Havana in Cuba to reconfigure vaccines using that work.

Most vaccines contained aluminium which posed problems for patients with kidney failure, diabetes and immune system disorders and caused concerns because aluminium toxicity had been linked with the development of Alzheimer's disease.

"Using Dr Cooper's work, we are able to reduce the aluminium to negligible levels or no level," Professor Petrovsky said.

"This is a major benefit to the safety of vaccines and makes them much more effective . . . It could revolutionise vaccines."

Professor Petrovsky said the development would apply to about 80 per cent of vaccines currently used including tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella and hepatitis.

It could also boost the body's immune response to the influenza vaccine without using aluminium.

The team was planning human trials of the reconstituted hepatitis B vaccine to gauge its safety in a few months and the product would be available in four years if the three phase testing was successful.

Hepatitis B was a big problem among health care workers, people who worked in dialysis for kidney patients, drug users, Aboriginal people and some migrants.

Professor Petrovsky said the team worked closely with Dr Cooper who regularly visited the laboratory.

Dr Cooper said he had devoted his professional life to cancer and microbiological research, starting work on penicillin and antibiotics in 1946.

He retired from the Australian National University's John Curtin School of Medical Research about 15 years ago but continued to work part-time for a few years after securing a research grant.

Dr Cooper said researchers had to find the right company at the right time if their discoveries were to leave the laboratory.

Companies making diphtheria and tetanus vaccines in the early 80s believed their products were cheap, safe and effective and showed no interest in his work, Dr Cooper said.

Australia was not at the cutting edge of vaccine development because most researchers had lacked venture capital to fund their work - a high risk for high return.

"You can make the most marvellous discovery in the lab - even the saviour of mankind - but it won't be taken up unless a company can make money," he said.