Baby wallaby bone development may hold key to human development

Melbourne researchers are one step closer to unravelling the secrets of human bone development in a new study involving three-dimensional synchrotron images of baby wallabies.

Victoria's Department of Primary Industries (DPI) and Monash University have captured video images that show the changes in calcification of the spinal cord and ribs of baby wallabies over the first few weeks of life.

"The data will now be used to identify specific components in the mother's milk that directly contribute to calcification," the Minister for Innovation, John Brumby, announced to delegates at the world's biggest biotechnology business conference, BIO2005, in Philadelphia.

"This information could lead to the isolation of proteins for later use in the treatment of poor bone development in premature babies and in the treatment of osteoporosis."

In a separate project last year, the State Government of Victoria announced Australia would partner with the USA-based National Institutes of Health to sequence the kangaroo (Tammar wallaby) genome with $AUD4.5 million ($US3.2 million) in funding from the Government.

First results in this sequencing project found a 68 per cent similarity between humans and wallabies. It is this similarity that scientists are applying to results in the bone research project.

DPI's Dr Jane Whitley, in collaboration with Professor Rob Lewis at the School of Physics and Materials Engineering at Monash University, used the world's largest synchrotron -- Spring8 in Japan -- to examine the pattern of bone calcification in the baby wallabies.

"These young wallabies are unique in that each stage of development is triggered by particular proteins in the mothers' milk," Dr Whitley said. "We are trying to isolate which genes code for proteins that kick off developmental changes such as lung changes, bone development and milk production.

"The hope is that these proteins can be used to initiate lung maturation in premature babies and bone development in patients with osteoporosis," she said.

Professor Lewis has pioneered the application of synchrotron radiation for biological imaging. The research is expected to accelerate once the Australian Synchrotron is completed in 2007.