Melbourne, Dec 8 (ANI): Human trials are set to begin on a technique that could revolutionize vaccination by replacing the syringe with the spoon.
The Australian-pioneered technique promises to make having the annual flu shot as painless as downing a spoonful of yoghurt.
Dr Barry Marshall, the Australian scientist who won a Nobel Prize for discovering the bacteria responsible for stomach ulcers, is working on a way to use those same bugs (Helicobacter pylori) to create edible vaccines.
The first challenge Marshall must get around is a basic principal of the human body - that the immune system does not normally react to food.
"Previously, people have looked at delivering vaccines on lactobacillus in yoghurts, for example, but most of these products just look food to the immune system and they are ignored," Dr Marshall said.
The expert added: "The new idea (is to use) the helicobacter, which infects your stomach temporarily.
"In the few days that it is sitting there it could be producing the vaccine, liberating it in the wall of your stomach where it is sensed by the immune system."
The trial, taking in 36 healthy Perth-based volunteers, will begin in January.
It will aim to find out which of a range of different strains of the unique bacteria, now known to be widespread and mostly harmless, had the most benign effect on gut. (ANI)
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