Rheumatic Fever

Rheumatic fever is a disease affecting the heart, brain, joints and skin and can follow an infection with the organism responsible for `strep throat' - Streptococcus pyogenes. Although rheumatic fever follows infection with streptococcus, the organism cannot be isolated from the tissues affected in rheumatic fever and all available evidence suggests that rheumatic fever is an autoimmune disease. It is particularly common in areas of the world that suffer from poverty and overcrowding, as these conditions are accompanied by more frequent streptococcal infections. Australia's Aboriginal population suffer the highest incidence of the disease worldwide. There is currently no vaccine to prevent rheumatic fever. At QIMR scientists are developing vaccine strategies to prevent infection with Streptococcus pyogenes. Since this is the only organism that can give rise to rheumatic fever, a vaccine that prevents infection with streptococcus will prevent rheumatic fever.

Our main approach has been to define a small region of a streptococcal surface protein, referred to as the M protein, which we could show was able to induce neutralising antibodies in mice. We then developed technology to correctly fold the small peptide to maintain its structure. Mice vaccinated with this folded region of the protein, referred to as J8, were fully protected from streptococcal infection. We are now embarking on a human clinical vaccine trial.

Vaccines typically take several years to develop and this research is very expensive. However, if a vaccine is developed it will result in a significant improvement in the quality of life for millions of people around the world and potentially save up to 500,000 lives per year.

For further information see Professor Michael Good's lab page and the CRC for Vaccine Technology.