Genetic blood test helps to personalise HIV medicine

HIV :: Genetic blood test helps to personalise HIV medicine

A major breakthrough in HIV research by Murdoch?s Professor Simon Mallal has opened up a new era in personalised medicine. Professor Mallal spoke at the International AIDS Society bi-annual conference on 25 July.

Professor Mallal has identified the responsible gene and subsequently developed a genetic test that can predict if a person will develop a life threatening reaction to the widely used anti-HIV drug Abacavir.

This is the first mainstream application of personalised medicine where a person is individually tested to see if they will have a reaction prior to taking medication.

"This is a huge step forward for medicine in general. As doctors, we usually come to a diagnosis and prescribe a treatment. This adds a new step - testing the treatment prior to a patient taking any medication," said Professor Mallal.

"This is the first successful randomised trial of personalised medicine and provides the recipe for using our knowledge of the human genome to improve treatment."

Professor Mallal said the results of the world-first trial would help with the development for personalised medicine for other diseases.

The results from this landmark trial will have important consequences for the management of HIV/AIDS worldwide - about eight per cent of people suffer life-threatening reaction to the Abacavir drug.

Professor Mallal's study involved nearly 2000 patients from 261 centres throughout Europe and Australia and thousands of healthcare workers. The test, known as Predict-1, will now be rolled out globally.

Murdoch University has begun work on a custom built $60 million research facility for the Institute for Immunology and Infectious Diseases to expand on Professor Mallal?s work in this field.