Elliminating dengue

Report: Betty Vassiliadis
Photography: Greg Ford

Great scientific discoveries require a combination of curiosity, persistence, collaboration and luck. They also require the support of people who believe in the research and are willing to back it financially.

Professor Scott O'Neill, Dean of Monash University's Faculty of Science, recognises the importance of philanthropy to his team's recent breakthrough in the fight against dengue fever.

"You can't do research that has a large impact without philanthropic support," said Professor O'Neill. "Philanthropic organisations are more likely to fund high-risk projects that can lead to revolutionary discoveries."

Dengue fever is caused by a virus that is spread between people by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. It infects between 50 and 100 million people each year and is one of the leading causes of hospitalisation and illness among children and adults in countries where it is endemic.

Professor O'Neill and the Eliminate Dengue program have discovered a way that may stop the Aedes aegypti mosquito from spreading the virus. They have been able to infect Aedes mosquitoes with strains of a naturally occurring bacterium, Wolbachia, which causes the mosquitoes to be immune to the dengue virus. If the mosquito can't be infected by the virus it can't pass it on to humans.

This may sound simple but reaching this point has taken over 20 years and there were times when it seemed that the project was at a dead end.

"I had been working on this idea of dengue for years and years. I was interested in finding out how to use Wolbachia to block the ability of an insect to transmit malaria or dengue. For years we tried different ways to utilise this feature, limping along from one US federal government grant to the next," he said. "Then there was a global call for innovative ideas in the area of global health so I submitted an application."

The call came from the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative launched in 2003 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in partnership with the National Institutes of Health. The initiative fosters scientific and technological innovation to solve the greatest health problems in the developing world. That initial call resulted in
1700 applications of which 44 projects were funded.

"Our project was one of those funded," said Professor O'Neill.

"Getting a large block of funding allowed us to pull the required team of people together and move forward incredibly quickly. This funding allowed us to intensify our research and the results were exciting. We were able to find a way to successfully introduce Wolbachia into the mosquitoes."

The Eliminate Dengue program has now conducted field trials in two suburbs of Cairns. They have successfully introduced the Wolbachia infection into a wild population of Aedes mosquitoes. Once a sufficient number of mosquitoes have the infection the method becomes self sustaining because the mosquitoes 'inherit' the parasite and pass it on from generation to generation. The Wolbachia method could stop the spread of dengue fever at a relatively low cost and reduce the reliance on insecticides.

"The next phase of the research involves larger field tests in areas where consistently high outbreaks of dengue fever occur and where we hope to demonstrate how effective the method is in reducing disease in these communities," said Professor O'Neill

However, even the funding from Grand Challenges in Global Health is not enough to take the research to this next level, which is why Professor O'Neill is seeking to build consortia of funders including government and philanthropic organisations.

For example, the JJ Tahija Foundation of Indonesia is supporting the field testing in the city of Yogyakarta. The Foundation has had a great interest in controlling dengue in Indonesia and, through previous projects, has built an infrastructure that will support the Eliminate Dengue Project.

"We are working with a local university in Indonesia – Gadjah Mada University, one of the largest and most respected universities in Indonesia. They will be our research collaborators on the ground in Indonesia," said Professor O'Neill.

"We will establish the mosquitoes in specific areas in the city. Then we will look at levels of dengue infection in the areas with the infected mosquitoes and those without. We hope that this will provide statistical evidence of a significant reduction of dengue disease."

"The bottom line is that as a scientist you need philanthropic support in order to see an impact from your research in your own lifetime."

Your role in advancing research: to find out more about the Eliminate Dengue program visit eliminatedengue.com