![\"tobacco\"](\"http:\/\/s.wsj.net\/public\/resources\/images\/OB-HQ821_tobacc_D_20100224103806.jpg\")
The method of making flu vaccines from chicken eggs is slow and expensive, but it has proved reliable for 60 years. So that’s what drug makers used last year in ramping up a new vaccine to offer protection from the sudden spread of the H1N1 virus.<\/p>\n
But “the response to H1N1 was a disaster,” said Brett Giroir, vice chancellor for research at Texas A&M University System, says in a WSJ report<\/a> this morning on an unusual plan to use tobacco plants to make flu vaccines. That’s a technician soaking a tobacco plant in bacterial solution to make a plant-based vaccine in the picture.<\/p>\n Texas A&M is part of a consortium getting $40 million from the U.S. Defense Department to test plant-based vaccines and to produce an initial 10 million doses to combat H1N1, otherwise known as swine flu. The consortium will invest another $21 million in the project known as GreenVax, which is being announced today, the Journal says.<\/p>\n There have been numerous approaches to try to improve vaccine production in recent years, including a new Novartis plant in North Carolina that is growing flu viruses in vats of cells derived from dog kidneys<\/a>. But animal parts can contain pathogens harmful to humans. <\/p>\n Using plants is an alternative, with tobacco proving especially attractive because it’s cheap to grow and can yield large amounts of vaccine in a matter of weeks instead of several months under the egg method, the WSJ says. It also cites other plant-based work going on at Arizona State and by Germany’s Bayer.<\/p>\n The military is backing the GreenVax project because it was unnerved by delays in producing<\/a> the H1N1 vaccine and it wants a more sure-fire way to protect soldiers from infectious diseases, not to mention bioterrorist threats. The Pentagon is also trying to tell when soldiers are getting a cold<\/a> before they go into combat.<\/p>\n Pandemic update:<\/strong> World Health Organization experts decided today it is too soon to say swine flu has peaked so it’s still officially a pandemic. Read the official reasoning here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Photo: Bloomberg News<\/em><\/p>\n The method of making flu vaccines from chicken eggs is slow and expensive, but it has proved reliable for 60 years. So that’s what drug makers used last year in ramping up a new vaccine to offer protection from the sudden spread of the H1N1 virus. But “the response to H1N1 was a disaster,” said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":792,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-358538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/792"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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