Collaboration really works

An organic chemist, a biochemist and some other scientists walk into a bar with a problem and soon cook up a ‘solution’, chemistry pun intended. This has been the experience of organic chemist Associate Professor Spencer Williams, from the University of Melbourne’s Bio21 Institute and School of Chemistry. Many of his eclectic projects have resulted in unexpected and fruitful outcomes that are about to influence the future of diabetic health and the future management of some inflammatory digestive disorders like Crohn’s disease, to name just a few.

“I love collaborative science,” he says.“When we get together with individuals from different disciplines with different expertise and skills we put our heads together and we find we can do things that none of us individually would be able to do.

“As synthetic chemists my students and postdoctoral researchers have unique capabilities as we are the sole discipline that has the ability to shape matter atom-by-atom into useful new molecular structures with which we can experiment.”

Associate Professor Williams says for a scientist, chemistry is where the action is.

“Many areas of science including biology and medicine work with chemists, who now have a greater ability than ever to make molecular structures to order that are very difficult to acquire or have never been made before. 

“The timely synthesis of new molecules with made-to-order functions has opened up new experimental vistas for other scientists to understand how the structure of these chemicals relates to functions in the body and how we can manipulate these functions and improve human health.” 

Associate Professor Williams and his fellow collaborators are about to enter the history books with their development of a class of drugs to prevent fibrosis, a type of scarring in major organs associated with type 1 diabetes that can compromise the functioning of the kidney, heart and lungs. 

This new anti-fibrotic drug, currently known as FT011, is an output of Fibrotech Therapeutics, which was a start-up biotechnology company co-founded by Associate Professor Williams and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne’s Bio21 Institute and Melbourne Medical School, and the St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research.Last year the company was sold to Irish pharmaceutical company, Shire Plc for US$75million plus additional milestone contingent payments. Shire is currently about to undertake phase two clinical trial of FT011.

Associate Professor Williams’ latest hot-off-the-bench research is in the area of the chemistry of gut bacteria that feast on the yeast from commonly consumed fermented foods like bread and beer. It has application to people suffering bowel diseases and autoimmune diseases. 

“The common gut bacteria Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron can process the carbohydrates that humans cannot, and we now understand the mechanisms of how it breaks the yeast cells down, especially the tough yeast cell walls that we had thought were indigestible.

“This bacteria in turn uses the energy released from the yeast cell wall components, called mannans, to produce important molecules that nourish the cells that line our gut wall, and provide immune signals that establish a healthy immune response.

“The research has potential in developing sophisticated prebiotics that target the growth of specific beneficial bacteria that may assist in fighting off yeast infections, reactions to fermented foods, and in autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s disease.

“This was a remarkably productive collaboration with scientists from the UK, USA, Canada and Belgium. The UK is paving the way and already uses this bacteria in the treatment of paediatric Crohn’s disease,” he says.

www.bio21.unimelb.edu.au