Tobacco Could Provide Anthrax Vaccine

Linknet Health News Digest - December 20, 2005 - In a recent story that sounds too good to be true, it has been reported that a molecular biologist, Professor Henry Daniell of the University of Central Florida, has developed a method of using genetically engineered tobacco to grow anthrax vaccine.
The anthrax vaccine gene is injected into the chloroplast genome of tobacco cells. The plant then grows seeds -- roughly a million seeds per plant -- which contain the vaccine.
According to Daniell this technology produces anthrax vaccine that is free of the anthrax toxin contamination that plagues traditionally fermented vaccines. The process could also be used for growing treatments for diabetes, hepatitis C, plague and cholera.
But don't go putting tobacco in View the rest of this article