Plantmademicrobicides

Plant-Made Microbicides: Scientific Detail

The goals of the project (Plant Made Microbicides and Mucosal Vaccines for STIs) is to design and produce mucosal vaccines in plant expression systems for sexually transmitted viral diseases and to test these vaccines in pre-clinical animal trials and in human trials. A second proposed project is to produce mucosal antibodies in plants which neutralize sexually transmitted viruses or which block viral receptors, and test them in human trials using vaginal delivery in the form of gels, creams or time-released applications such as vaginal sponge or ring. While there is no programmatic overlap, both projects use transgenic plant technology as a common platform.
 
The research team leading this project has focused on the design of crops that will accumulate therapeutic compounds and vaccines in the leaves, fruits, grains, or storage tissue. Under the directorship of Regents’ professor and principal investigator Charles Arntzen, the group has been able to produce immunogenic proteins that can act as oral vaccines when ingested. They have conducted successful Phase I clinical trials with plant-derived vaccines against hepatitis B, enterotoxigenic E. coli, and Norwalk virus. These vaccines have shown particular utility in preventing diarrhea—still one of the two leading causes for child mortality worldwide.

In addition to the obvious humanitarian benefits, vaccine production in crops affords other advantages including:

  • The ability to produce pharmaceutical proteins and vaccines more economically than mammalian cell cultures or animal inoculation techniques.
  • The ability to manufacture medicines for major diseases that cannot be produced in any other way.
  • The efficiency of producing pharmaceuticals and diagnostic materials in large volumes to significantly increase patient access to new therapies.
  • The natural ability to produce proteins with molecular structure similar to the proteins in the human body.


Such plant-based approaches would offer a highly attractive, low-cost alternative for AIDS-affected regions which lack sophisticated pharmaceutical production facilities.