Indian American Scientist Dr. Henry Daniell has produced a safe and effective Anthrax vaccine from genetically modified Tobacco plant. The new gene transfer technique to tobacco plants could help avoid side effects of inflammation, flu symptoms and rashes involved in conventional anthrax vaccine fermentation process. Daniell feels that an affordable anthrax vaccine of 360 million doses in one acre of tobacco plant, as the threat of anthrax bioterrorism is very high. The study was funded by NIH and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Professor Henry Daniel, Professor of Molecular biology, University of Central Flordia, the new technique involves transferring the anthrax vaccine gene into the chloroplast genome of tobacco plant cells and the vaccine produced from the plant is found to be effective in protecting mice from anthrax bacilli. The Researchers would collaborate with NIH to undergo a clinical trial on the efficacy of the new vaccine on humans and quantify the immune cells after vaccination.
