Canadian researchers leading way in learning more about syphilis

For 20 years, Caroline Cameron has been one of the planet’s few researchers studying syphilis.

“There’s only five institutions worldwide; we’re the only one in Canada,” said the University of Victoria professor of biochemistry and microbiology. “And so it’s a very underserved field.”

Cameron wanted to know more about syphilis protein Tp0751, which she thought moved through the body like cancer cells.

“It’s really a difficult pathogen to work with, and so I think you have to stick with it or you’re not going to get anywhere,” she said.

Cameron and fellow Canada Research Chair Martin Boulanger, a structural biologist at University of Victoria, took the protein to the Canadian Light Source synchrotron in Saskatoon.

They were able to determine the three-dimensional structure of the protein, which turned out to be similar to a protein found in humans that’s related to how cancer spreads, explaining how syphilis can spread so quickly.

While the syphilis is still completely responsive to penicillin treatment, it’s spreading because unprotected sex is becoming more common now that HIV is considered a chronic, treatable, disease. People with HIV are also thought to be more susceptible to syphilis, Cameron said.

Globally, 36 million people are infected; 11 million new infections are diagnosed every year.

Saskatoon’s health region issued an advisory in April to notify physicians of the “continuing syphilis outbreak.”

North America has experienced a sharp rise in the population of men who have sex with men; in other parts of the world, particularly China, syphilis is transmitted primarily through heterosexual sex and from mother to fetus, which can lead to stillbirths, Cameron said.

Now, researchers can potentially better target the protein and prevent the spread of the disease — although a vaccine is still at least 10 years away, she said.

She’s happy her hunch about the protein was vindicated.

“That’s the whole thing about research — you can have a hypothesis and you can work on it for many years, and then it can come to nothing if you didn’t build your hypothesis from something solid. So it’s a relief when what you thought could be happening is definitely proven.”

University of Victoria professor Caroline Cameron, above, and Martin Boulanger are among the few researchers in the world studying syphilis. They have made headway in learning about the syphilis protein Tp0751.