Australian research leads the whey

By Philippa Stevenson

A one-time dairy industry waste product is on the brink of making medical history as a revolutionary aid for healing chronic wounds and ulcers.

In laboratory trials, Australian researchers have discovered the therapeutic potential of whey - a by-product of cheese-making - and are about to launch international clinical trials on 300 patients in Australia and Europe.

They say a whey extract containing a cocktail of previously unknown growth factors has proven effective in tests in accelerating wound healing. It may also have other benefits.

Research, which started in Adelaide in 1991, is continuing into the effect of the extract on burns, inflammatory bowel disease, infants' gastric disorders, and even as a cosmetic aid.

The whey extract also has potential for cancer sufferers, offering the chance to prevent mucositis which can result in severe mouth ulceration, gut pain and diarrhoea - a side-effect of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The product is being manufactured in a purpose-built $500,000 plant in Adelaide.

The trials should take up to two years.

Up until 10 years ago whey was regarded as waste and fed to pigs or, in less environmentally conscious times, dumped in streams.

In New Zealand in the last decade, ultra filtration techniques have enabled proteins from whey to be used in infant formula, body building supplements, and as a moisture binder in ham. Any excess is often used as fertiliser.

More than 100 Australian researchers have spent $10 million over eight years investigating whey's "bioactive" proteins. The scientific team includes representatives from Adelaide hospitals, child health and dairy industry researchers, and the commercial arm of a research organisation, GroPep Pty.

GroPep's managing director John Ballard said successful clinical trials would establish Australia as a key player in the biopharmaceutical research world, and provide a big opportunity for the Australian dairy industry.

The project's process development manager, Dr Geoff Regester, said the six-month-old pilot plant processed 10,000 litres of whey weekly, yielding an active ingredient comprising less than 1 per cent of the original whey proteins.

The acting chief executive of the New Zealand Dairy Research Institute, Terry Thomas, said research here had concentrated on nutritional products.

The Australian discovery was "unlikely to take the volumes of milk the New Zealand dairy industry is challenged to move," he said.

Barry Richardson, the general manager of international and strategic development at the Tatua dairy company, said the cost was likely to be very high for clinical trials and to gain FDA approval in the United States.

New Zealand products were designed to shift high volumes but "that is not to say the industry hasn't gone for value in niche products."