Oriental liver fluke responsible for the deaths of 26,000 people a year secretes a growth factor that accelerates wound healing and blood vessel growth
Research team in Queensland has found the protein from the liver fluke could help treat chronic wounds such as diabetic ulcers. Photograph: PhotoStock-Israel/Alamy
Researchers have found a cancer-causing parasitic worm responsible for the deaths of about 26,000 people a year could prove useful in healing chronic wounds such as diabetic ulcers.
Research by a team at James Cook University in Queensland has found the 1cm-long oriental liver fluke secretes a growth factor that accelerates wound healing and blood vessel growth in tests on mice and cell cultures.
The protein responsible could be especially useful in the treatment of chronic wounds, the incidence of which is expected to increase as the population ages.
“Keeping [wounds] clean is largely the method [of treatment] at the moment,” Dr Michael Smout said. “There is certainly a lot of room for expansion in the wound healing market.”
But Smout cautioned that the use of the healing protein would have to be short-term because exposure over many years leads to liver cancer.
“The worm is killing us with kindness,” Smout said.
The oriental liver fluke is caught by eating certain south-east Asian fish raw. It infects millions and kills about 26,000 people with cancer, which starts in the bile duct, every year.
Smout hoped his discovery could be used to develop a vaccine against the tiny killer.
“The protein is critical for the worm’s survival,” Smout said. “It seems likely a good candidate for something to stop the worm.”
Smout has been researching the liver fluke for 10 years and is able to grow it in a lab. He said his team would continue researching the healing and vaccine benefits of the secretion, but that human trials are many years away.