Seeing microbiologist Dr. Phil Hansbro squelching around in gum boots and a soggy hat, you wouldn’t know he was at the forefront of avian flu research. But Phil’s work is vital to our understanding of the virus and how to deal with the potential bird flu pandemic

Phil has been obsessed with birds since he was a child and has gone birdwatching all over the world. Neither of his parents have a passion for birds, so he doesn’t quite know where it came from. “Whenever I talk about birds my dad just says “you plonker” and my mum says a lot of “that’s nice dears”.

Dr. Hansbro is one of the few scientists in the world looking at the relationship between bacterial infections and asthma. He hopes his research will lead to a deeper understanding of the way bird viruses attack human cells. “We need to be aware of these viruses and their circulation in the wild bird populations, but not to be too alarmed by them at the moment”.

TRANSCRIPT

Narration: Microbiologist, Dr Phil Hansbro, is at the forefront of Australia’s research of H5N1, the deadly Bird flu that threatens to mutate from bird to human transmission.

Dr Phil Hansbro: These migratory wading birds are incredible birds, they just migrated all the way from Siberia to Australia and they are a potential threat for bringing bird flu into Australia from Asia
Ever since I can remember I was interested in birds even when I was a kid.
I have my very first pair of binoculars Bought for 10 pounds in the mid 70’s And my very first bird book I bought this for as couple of pounds
Got some of my old sightings in it. I still remember seeing my first golden eagle June 1974. My mum and dad thought I was a bit strange I should be playing football instead of bird watching. My dad used to call me a plonker when ever we talked about birds. I never thought you could be a rugby player and a bird watcher so when I went to Fiji I went bird watching in the afternoon while the lads went to the pub Still to this day so till this day they don’t know.

Narration: By the age of 28 Phil had trained as a microbiologist, but it was his passion for bird watching that had taken him around the world.
With the outbreak of bird flu in Asia, his passion and his career began to merge.

Dr Phil Hansbro: Very few people studying it and we had set up strategies to detect these viruses in wild birds and we were some of the few people able to do that
As result of these bird flu outbreaks the Australian Government
released a large block of funding to look at bird flu and so we proposed a project where we would massively expanding our surveillance program and look at viruses to see if they were pathogenic or not
We felt we were the front line xpanded to include other people who had started to look for these viruses as well to form a national surveillance system for these viruses in Australia.

Narration: After testing thousands of samples from around Australia, Phil has only found strains of the virus that don’t cause disease.
Dr Phil Hansbro: Although it would be exciting for our results We hoped not to find any H5n1 viruses but we wanted to find other viruses non disease causing where we could investigate the ecology of these bird viruses in wild bird populations.

Narration: Phil’s latest research is looking at whether some people are more sensitive to Bird flu than others.

Dr Phil Hansbro: People with some obstructive airways diseases may have more inflamed airways and potentially may be more susceptible to these viruses.

Narration: Phil hopes his research will lead to a deeper understanding of the way bird viruses attack human cells.

Dr Phil Hansbro: Greatest fear is that some of this bird flu virus will become pathogenic and then become able to under go human to human transmission. That’s the big fear.

We need to be aware of these viruses and what’s circulation in the wild bird populations but not to be too alarmed. By them at the moment.

Story Contacts

Dr Phil hansbro
Bacteriology/Microbiology Research Group Leader &
Senior Lecturer in Microbiology
Discipline of Immunology & Microbiology
School of Biomedical Sciences
Faculty of Health
The University of Newcastle &
Vaccines, Infection/Immunity, Viruses & Asthma
(VIVA), Hunter Medical research Institute

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