Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences
School of Biological Sciences
Department of Biochemistry
Selected Highlights from Research Findings
A new initiative was launched in 2009 with the establishment of the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine (ICMM) at the University of Pretoria with Prof Michael Pepper as the director. It aims to establish biotechnology start-up companies from marketable research ideas in the medical and veterinary science domains arising from the three faculties of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Health Sciences and Veterinary Science. In his inaugural lecture on 10 February 2009, entitled An oily start towards a medical biotechnology institute, the Head of the Department of Biochemistry, Prof Jan Verschoor, announced how the institute intends to engage with this exciting new venture. The Biochemistry Department focuses on human and animal health, in particular HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis (TB) and tick-related diseases. Vaccines, diagnostics and drugs for treatment are developed using modern bioinformatics and chemical screening technologies. Plants and the relevant pathogens and host responses are investigated for clues to find improved means to manage these diseases. The department produced 13 published research papers in 2009 that addressed these topics, each testifying to extensive interdepartmental, interfaculty, interinstitutional and international networks of collaboration.
That the ‘early’ start of the ICMM could also be dubbed ‘oily’ derives from the nature of the first substance that is destined to be developed into marketable products in the near future. Mycolic acids are the waxy oils that envelop the mycobacteria that cause TB. The dogma that these oils merely provide a physical and chemical barrier to protect the pathogen against host biochemical onslaughts was abandoned when the UP team demonstrated (and patented) several unique biological properties of the mycolic acids from 1994 to 1999. Since 2000, in collaboration with Prof Johan Grooten from the University of Gent, it was demonstrated that the mycolic acids induced specific innate immunity, cured experimental asthma in mice and expressed potential as a unique adjuvant for vaccines.
A major breakthrough was the discovery that mycolic acids could be used as antigen for a novel new TB diagnostic that is much more rapid than existing technologies and is not affected by co-infection with HIV. These two aspects of a TB diagnostic are essential to tame the current panic in southern Africa where HIV infection drives the TB epidemic to the world’s worst. After filing in 2005, the University was granted the European patent rights for its invention of the so-called MARTI TB test in 2008. The application in the USA is pending. In 2009, a follow-up article by the UP team and its collaborators in Methods of Enzymology describes how the MARTI TB test was invented as a laser-based biosensor and optimised for validation in TB reference laboratories. Another 2009 paper by the team in Chemical Communications was selected as a ‘hot article’ and describes how the MARTI test can be configured for high sample throughput using an electrochemical biosensor.
In 2010, it is envisaged that an ICMM-based start-up company will be established by UP to commercialise products derived from mycolic acids research. Papers will appear on the application of chemically synthetic mycolic acids in the diagnosis of TB, stemming from a productive collaboration with Prof Mark Baird of the School of Chemistry, University of Bangor, UK. That university, together with the University of Gent and UP, have already embarked on a Wellcome Trust-supported research project to test synthetic mycolic acids-based vaccine adjuvants at the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Onderstepoort under the supervision of Dr Jannie Crafford.
Contact person: Prof JA Verschoor.
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