Professional Documents
Culture Documents
EDIBLE VACCINES
V. Krishna Chaitanya*, Jonnala Ujwal Kumar
ABSTRACT
A new approach for delivering vaccine antigens is
the use of inexpensive, oral vaccines. Edible oral
vaccines offer exciting possibilities for significantly
reducing the burden of diseases like hepatitis and
diarrhea particularly in the developing world where
storing and administering vaccines are often major
problems. Even though they have some disadvantages
like control of the dosage of the antigen that is present
INTRODUCTION
In the last decade, advancements in the field of
medicine and healthcare have been possible because of the
development of newer, safer and highly effective vaccines;
recombinant vaccines, subunit vaccines, peptide vaccines
and DNA vaccines to name a few. Although these vaccines
have an undue advantage over traditional conventional
vaccines, there is a flip side to them. Not only are these
vaccines expensive, but their storage and transportation pose
a problem as many of them require refrigeration. This is a
disadvantage in many of the developing countries.
So, as alternatives had to be thought of, it was envisaged
that plants could be used as a cheap, safe and efficient
production system for vaccines and thus the concept of edible
vaccines was born.
DEFINITION
Edible vaccines are nothing but transgenic plant and
animal based production of or those that contain agents
that trigger an animals immune response. In simple terms,
edible vaccines are plant or animal made pharmaceuticals.
This essay highlights the importance of edible vaccines
produced in plants.
INITIAL DEVELOPMENTS IN DESIGNING THE EDIBLE
VACCINES
The concept of edible vaccines was developed by
Arntzen (www.genomenewsnetwork.org) in the 1990s. He
currently heads the department of plant biology at the
Arizona State University. He fell upon the idea after he
attended a conference in New York, organized by the WHO.
Although the idea seemed quite simple in the beginning,
making it into a reality has required sophisticated science.
CORRESPONDING ADDRESS
*KRISHNA CHAITANYA. V.
C/o. Dr. T.S. Lokeswari
HOD, Biotechnology, SRMC (R) (O.V)
No.24, Dr. Vasudev Nagar,
Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai-600 041
email : tsloki@yahoo.com
N33
Short Review
34
NSri