The WA-based team is designing a nasal formulation containing good bacteria that may help protect users from respiratory infections
WA researchers have created nasal ‘immunobiotic’ drops, containing commensal respiratory bacteria that may help fight respiratory infections like bacterial otitis media and influenza.
The research is led by Dr Lea-Ann Kirkham, Co-Director of the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at the Telethon Kids Institute, and involves a multi-institutional team, including researchers from The University of Western Australia and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
The new approach is backed by pre-clinical studies completed by this team, showing the effectiveness of commensal bacteria preventing respiratory infection in mice.
About the science
The basic idea behind the new therapy is that exposure to commensal bacteria (also known as friendly bacteria) from the respiratory tract can stimulate the innate immune system – the body’s first line of defence against pathogenic microbes.
Commensal bacteria refer to any bacterial species normally found living in the body of a healthy person and make up the human microbiome. In recent years, research has identified important roles of the microbiome in different aspects of our health, including our resilience to respiratory infections.
Exposure to these friendly bacteria, especially for those who are not naturally exposed early in life, may be an effective way to boost our immune defences against a range of microbial infections.
“We are only just beginning to understand how commensal bacteria regulate our immune system. There is a lot of research on the benefits of gut commensals but less is known about the role of respiratory tract commensals,” Dr Kirkham told Medical Forum.
“We refer to our product as an immunobiotic, as nasal application of this friendly bacteria results in a quick inflammatory response in the nose that seems to awaken the local immune system and prime it to fight oncoming respiratory infection. The ability of this immunobiotic to provide non-specific protection against multiple pathogens is something that we are really excited about”, she added.
About the study
The team are now undertaking a first-in-human study, testing the safety of this immunobiotic treatment in healthy adults. “The goal of our study is to take our pre-clinical findings into clinical trials. The first step is to demonstrate the safety of using this nasal immunobiotic and to measure how well it is tolerated in healthy adults. Then we can move into testing the effectiveness of this therapy in populations that are at high risk of respiratory infections, including young children,” Dr Kirkham told Medical Forum.
The results from this study will provide critical data needed for the next step: a randomised controlled trial testing the efficacy against respiratory infections.
“We are aiming to develop a product that can be used by everyone to effectively prevent respiratory infections. This could perhaps be something that we take daily during winter months, or when travelling, or maybe before a child attends day-care (where respiratory infection is extremely common). The potential for protection against disease from both bacterial and viral origin suggests that this product could also be used in outbreak situations, even when we do not know the identity of the pathogen, such as at the beginning of the COVID pandemic,” Dr Kirkham added.