Plant based vaccines have positive implications for developing countries where the infrastructure for vaccine production is limited.
Cape Town - Scientists from the University of Cape Town, who spent two decades studying plant-made vaccines before shifting their focus to Covid-19 when the pandemic struck, have reported a successful, near-full length SARS-CoV-2 vaccine spike in plants.
“This is achieved by infiltrating the bacteria containing the DNA of interest into plants under a vacuum which turns the plant cells into factories to produce the protein of interest. The species Nicotiana benthamiana is most commonly used for this purpose as it is highly susceptible to A tumefaciens and grows rapidly.”
With the vaccine rollout programme already in full swing, Margolin said the main obstacle to further development of these forms of vaccines was a lack of infrastructure for manufacturing on the continent. Vaccinologist at Vaccines for Africa, Dr Benjamin Kagina said that although the plant based vaccine could be seen beneficial from a financial and safety point of view, a lot still needs to be done in order to stand head to head with the rise of the new technological method of how vaccines are manufactured.
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