Hunting a deadly molecular chameleon

Dr Michael Jennings is working on important tools for the development of a meningitis vaccine.

Based in the School of Molecular and Microbial Sciences, Dr Jennings and his team are analysing the structure and mechanisms of sugar-containing molecules in the bacteria which causes meningococcal meningitis (Neisseria meningitidis), in the hope of finding a viable vaccine target.

Dr Jennings' UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award is valued at $75,000.

Although meningococcal meningitis is not a common disease, its most serious form, meningococcal septicaemia, can progress from first symptoms to death in only a few hours.

There is an excellent vaccine for group C meningitis, but not for the group B strain, which accounts for about half of the meningitis cases in the western world.

'The organism is very difficult to make a vaccine against because it has molecular mimicry - that is, it has structures on the surface that are the same as structures on human cells,' Dr Jennings said.

'Additionally, it changes its surface all the time, so if you make a vaccine against a target, the cell simply switches it off.'

Dr Jennings said finding a target for a meningitis group B vaccine required a lateral approach, by either taking a genetically modified structure that normally was not present, or finding one of the few proteins that were expressed consistently on the cell's surface.

'One of the most recent developments in my laboratory is the work we've done on the glycosylation of bacterial proteins - that is, modifying bacterial proteins by the addition of sugars,' he said.

'The funding from the Award will allow me to employ a postdoctoral research scientist who will be trying to elucidate the precise mechanism for the biosynthesis of the glycosylation. In effect, that will allow us to go right down to the precise detail of how these molecules are constructed.'

Dr Jennings received his PhD in Molecular Microbiology from Griffith University and was an Australian Bicentennial Research Fellow and Beit Memorial Research Fellow at the University of Oxford from 1992 to 1996. He was been at The University of Queensland since 1997.

His research into the mechanisms of pathogenesis, vaccine development and bacterial genetics is gaining increasing commercial interest.

Over the past 18 months Dr Jennings' laboratory has filed six provisional patents. In 2000/2001 he was awarded five new grants and one commercial contract to a total value of $1.25 million, in addition to grants already held.

One of these grants is from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and will fund collaborative research with Dr Michael Apicella from University of Iowa in the United States.

He is presently working in Dr Apicella's group in the United States on a six month sabbatical.

Media: For more details about the research of the nine winners contact Peter McCutcheon (07 3365 1088 or 0413 380012) or Jan King (07 3365 1120 or 0413 601 248)