James Cook University senior research fellow Paul Giacomin will soon begin new human trials, recruiting 60 people with coeliac disease to voluntarily infect themselves with hookworms.

In a previous study using hookworms involving 12 patients, participants were able to work their way up to eating a medium-sized bowl of pasta with no ill effects.

"At the end of the trial, people were eating food they could never eat before," Dr Giacomin said.

"We were really surprised, actually, that we were able to get these people with the worms to ingest that much gluten.

"It was really promising but it needed another follow-up study to more conclusively show that the worms have a therapeutic effect."

After the smaller study in ended in 2013, all of the participants wanted to keep their worms and declined to take medication to kill their parasites.

"We tested them last year and all of them are still infected - these infections can last up to 10 years," Dr Giacomin said.

In the previous study, all 12 people knew they would get a hookworm, whereas in the upcoming double-blind two-year trial, it will involve 60 people - a group who get a placebo, a group with 40 worms and another with 20 worms.

Dr Giacomin said hookworms were able to survive in the human gut by dialling back the immune response.

"Which is perfect for treating coeliac disease, which is an autoimmune disorder," he said.

"A low number of parasites has been shown to be safe and well tolerated."

While many Queenslanders have ditched gluten from their diets, in people with coeliac disease, their immune system reacts abnormally to the protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats, causing small bowel damage.

Coeliac disease can cause symptoms such as diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal pain, anaemia, ulcers and easy bruising of the skin.

The human trials will be conducted over two years at The Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, Logan Hospital, Townsville Hospital and New Zealand's Christchurch Hospital.

The larger trial will allow the team to study the mechanisms by which the worms control the immune response.

Dr Giacomin ultimately hopes to develop a pill to treat coeliac disease and said he did not want to advocate people deliberately getting infected with hookworms.

"It's a blood-feeding parasite... So people in developing countries, like the tropics [get it], these people are malnourished, and if they're infected with these worms, they feed on your blood and make you anaemic, they can also make you susceptible to other health problems," he said.

"There are people who engage in that sort of medical tourism, there are people who fly to places and walk through infested areas.

"There are online groups where people share their worms.

"We don't think this worm infection is going to be a viable treatment, it is very difficult to regulate if you are infected with hundreds of worms."

Dr Giacomin said there was a theory that one of the reasons that inflammatory diseases were so common in places like Australia was because we were no longer exposed to worms as frequently.

The upcoming study is not yet calling for participants, but they will be seeking people who are diagnosed with coeliac disease and follow a gluten-free diet.

It is being supported by a $300,000 government Advance Queensland Research Fellowship, and also supported by funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Coeliac Australia, The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation and the AITHM.

Innovation Minister Leeanne Enoch said it was exciting to think a treatment could be developed for people with the disease.

"From the Queensland government's perspective, this investment is about seeing more research and trial technicians being employed for these particular trials," Ms Enoch said.

"Not only are we getting these potential job opportunities now and into the future, but we're also seeing this great outcome for people who suffer from this terrible disease."