Professor Grant Waterer has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council to aid his research into determining why we develop pulmonary infections, how best to treat them, and the development of new therapeutic options.

Lung Institute of Western Australia researcher Professor Grant Waterer is undertaking a detailed study into pulmonary illness to develop new treatment options / Image: Istockphoto

Specifically, Prof Waterer will focus on pulmonary conditions due to non-tuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) disease, in immunocompetent patients.

Prof Waterer describes NTM as a chronic infection, causing progressive destruction of the lung with symptoms including cough, weight loss and fatigue.

There are 2000 estimated cases in Australia and the prevalence has increased since the early 1990’s.

“We presume (the prevalence in Australia) is due to the climate,” Prof Waterer says.

“The areas with the highest prevalence in the world are Western Australia, Queensland and Texas.”

The research hypothesis argues an individual’s immune response to NTM determines whether they develop the disease and, if they have the disease, whether they respond to treatment.

To examine this Prof Waterer will compare samples from patients with untreated NTM disease, treatment responders, treatment non-responders and age/gender-matched control subjects.

“At present when we manage pneumonia we have to guess what the bug is,” Professor Waterer says.

“We also decide how sick someone is without any knowledge of what type of bug it is, and indeed how many bugs are invading the person’s lung. 

“This new technology takes away a lot of the guesswork.”

Professor Waterer also says it is thought half the deaths in the 1918 influenza outbreak were due to secondary bacterial pneumonia or “getting a second infection after influenza opened the door”.

“This type of new assay (a method of taking small amount of DNA to make many copies quickly) has real potential to save lives,” he says.

The assay will detect Streptococcus pneumoniae in blood with twice the sensitivity of previously available assays and with extremely high specificity

In addition to the financial assistance, Professor Waterer says the grant fosters collaborations, such as with the University of Connecticut’s Associate Professor Mark Metersky and Yale University’s Associate Professor Kristina Crothers.

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