At the end of 1969, Graeme Laver, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Australian National University in Canberra, organised a trip to Tryon Island and discovered that seabirds on the Great Barrier Reef are riddled with influenza viruses. He collected sera from 201 shearwaters, tested them on the spot, and to his surprise, he discovered some birds had antibodies against antigens of Influenzavirus A and some of these avian antibodies are inhibitory to specific viral neuraminidases. Live viruses were also harvested from these birds on Tryon Island and a novel N9 neuraminidase was identified. Crystals of this neuraminidase were later prepared for X-ray diffraction analysis to elucidate the enzyme's three-dimensional structure, yielding information useful to many pharmaceuticals, such as Gilead Sciences, Hoffmann La Roche, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoWellcome, Eli Lilly and Company, Abbott Labs., ZymeTx Corporation and Pfizer Ltd. in the design and synthesis of novel neuraminidase inhibitors which these companies hoped to market as anti-influenza drugs. In particular, Gilead Sciences in the United States developed a carbocyclic, orally bioavailable neuraminidase inhibitor currently marketed under the name Tamiflu.
