Research

HAPS continues a long tradition of research excellence, creating outcomes of world-class significance. To facilitate this commitment to research HAPS provides a series of Research Grants aimed at supporting local researchers in medicine.

Microbiology Research

In addition to diagnostic services, the Department of Microbiology is playing an important role and engaged in significant microbiological research and development (R&D) activities. The Department has an AQIS approved physical containment level three (PC3) laboratory facility and research staff to conduct and coordinate the following research projects.

a) Q fever research projects:

1. Sero-epidemiological study of Q fever in residents of Hunter and New England regions of NSW. (This study is recently completed and published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 2011; 84(2):318-320).
2. Isolation and characterisation of Coxiella burnetii from Q fever patients and environmental specimens (Australian culture collection).
3. Comparative study of pathogenecity of virulent and avirulent strains/isolates of Coxiella burnetii.
4. Profiling of clinical, epidemiological and serological characteristics of Q fever- a case series analysis.
5. Studies on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) related to Q fever and other rickettsial diseases.
6. In vivo and in vitro studies for detecting and measuring small numbers of viable Coxiella burnetii.
7. Comparative study and optimisation of immunoflurescence (IF) technique for routine diagnosis of Q fever.
8. Geno-typing of new Australian isolates of Coxiella burnetii
9. Retrospective studies of a Q fever outbreak in Newport, UK- a joint research project.
10. Development of 2^nd generation vaccine for Q fever- a joint research project with scientists in Slovakia and Korea.

b) Other Research projects:

1. Comparative study on faecal microscopy and lactoferin assay, and evaluation of diarrheal disease pattern.
2. Isolation, molecular identification and antibiotic sensitivity of newly isolated Orientia tsutsugamushi from a patient of Scrub Typhus outbreak in Cowlea Beach, QLD.
3. Evaluation of antibacterial activity of insulin at different dilutions using three different bacterial contaminants.

Haematology Research

Research into the effects of snake venom on the haemostatic system - Lisa Lincz, Margaret O’Leary, Fiona Scorgie, Michael Seldon, Geoff Isbister

Venomous snakes worldwide are capable of inducing a venom induced consumption coagulopathy (VICC) in humans with associated morbidity and mortality from bleeding. Despite isolation and characterization of numerous prothrombin and coagulation factor activators, as well as thrombin-like enzymes, an understanding of the procoagulant process in human envenoming remains limited. This is largely due to the lack of a standardised approach toin vitro testing of snake venom clotting effects, and a paucity of data describing the clinical manifestations of snake envenoming in humans - VICC in vivo. In a number of instances this has hampered our understanding, development and clinical application of antivenom therapy for snakebite coagulopathy.

Researchers have developed a novel modification of the traditional endogenous thrombin potential (ETP) assay using procoagulant snake venoms to trigger thrombin production. Using this assay the researchers demonstrated that most Elapidae venoms that contain prothrombinase-like toxinswere able to initiatethrombin generation in either the absence or presence of calcium.