Taiwan partnership spells sweet success

Griffith University's Institute for Glycomics has signed a three-year deal with Taiwan's Institute of Biological Chemistry at Academia Sinica for a project using carbohydrates to battle some of humanity's most devastating diseases.

The two institutes are among just six centres in the world specialising in carbohydrate drug design and science.

Institute for Glycomics Executive Director Professor Mark von Itzstein (right) said the agreement followed a Queensland Government trade initiative designed to streamline research and commercial collaboration between Queensland and Taiwan.

"The agreement will provide our scientists and research students with unprecedented access to North Asia's rapidly expanding biotech industry through work and study exchanges," he said.

"Our immediate target is both infectious diseases caused by viruses such as rotavirus that kills approximately half-a-million children worldwide per annum and on improved treatments for cancers that metastasise such as colon cancer."

Glycomics is a rapidly emerging science, widely tipped as one of the most promising drug technologies of the 21st century, particularly for difficult-to-treat illnesses as a result of infections by viruses and multidrug resistant bacteria.

"For example viruses function by entering our body and recognising a particular type of carbohydrate on the surface of a cell. They adhere to this, and use the genetic material within our own cells to reproduce undetected by our immune system," Professor von Itzstein said.

"They can emerge slightly changed, so even if you've built an immunity by having had the parent virus before, or been vaccinated, you're still likely to contract a mutated strain.

"The goal of glycomics research is to custom-design drugs that will 'plug' a disease's ability to adhere to our cells and Reservoirs get a replicate," he said.