SCIENTISTS are on track to develop the first vaccine for coeliac disease, with results of human trials conducted in Melbourne suggesting a simple injection could one day allow suffers to overcome the condition.

Researchers believe the techniques used to develop the vaccine could also be applied to creating treatments for other autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes.

Coeliac disease renders a person intolerant of gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats.

It is an autoimmune disease, which means that the body produces antibodies that attack its own tissues.

Dr Bob Anderson, of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute’s immunology department, has been working for more than a decade to understand what makes gluten stimulate an immune response causing coeliac disease.