ProdiGene to develop plant-based HIV vaccine
ProdiGene, a Texas-based biotechnology company that is developing a number of edible plant vaccines, has received an NIH grant to develop a plant-based HIV vaccine. The HIV grant will allow the company to engineer maize seed (corn) that expresses HIV gp120. According to ProdiGene's president John Howard, the corn seeds could also be designed to express codon-optimized genes and DNA vaccines and to be part of any corn product (cooked or uncooked), including cornmeal. Plant vaccines offer several potential advantages: they are cheap to produce, do not need refrigeration; can be grown in virtually every country and require no needles to administer.
Howard also presented data at the Millennium Second World Congress on Vaccines and Immunization, held on 29 August -1 September 2000 in Liege, Belgium, showing that a corn vaccine against porcine gastroenteritis virus seemed to offer some protection (measured as longer survival) in immunized pigs. At the same meeting, researchers from Cornell University (New York) reported that edible potato vaccines for E. coli, Norwalk virus and hepatitis B have entered human trials, and that all three generated measurable immune responses.
(from
http://www.aegis.com/pubs/iavi/2000/IAVI2000-0912.html )
In other words, our food supply has been modified to include Hep B, Norwalk virus, and E coli, and also HIV.
Brings new meaning to a "balanced meal", eh?
Remember, genetically modified food products are NOT LABELLED as such, in the US, and approximately 70 percent of all us corn and soybean is now genetically modified in some way.
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