{"id":14704,"date":"2021-12-27T16:45:39","date_gmt":"2021-12-27T16:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/?p=14704"},"modified":"2021-12-27T16:45:39","modified_gmt":"2021-12-27T16:45:39","slug":"covid-19-vaccines-and-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/covid-19-vaccines-and-plants\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 Vaccines and Plants"},"content":{"rendered":"

COVID-19 Vaccines in your salad? Scientists growing medicine-filled plants to replace injections.<\/p>\n

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RIVERSIDE, Calif. \u2014 <\/strong>Vaccinations can be a controversial subject for many people, especially when it comes to injections. So what if you could replace your next shot with a salad instead? Researchers at the University of California-Riverside are working on a way to grow edible plants that carry the same medication as an mRNA vaccine.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The COVID-19 vaccine<\/a> is one of the many inoculations which use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology to defeat viruses. They work by teaching cells from the immune system to recognize and attack a certain infectious disease. Unfortunately, mRNA vaccines have to stay in cold storage until use or they lose stability. The UC-Riverside team says if they\u2019re successful, the public could eat plant-based mRNA vaccines \u2014 which could also survive at room temperature.<\/p>\n

Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers are now looking accomplish three goals. First, the team will try to successfully deliver DNA containing mRNA vaccines<\/a> into plant cells, where they can replicate. Next, the study authors want to show that plants can actually produce enough mRNA to replace a traditional injection. Finally, the team will need to determine the right dosage<\/a> people will need to eat to properly replace vaccinations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person,\u201d says Juan Pablo Giraldo, an associate professor in UCR\u2019s Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, in a university release.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce<\/a> and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens,\u201d Giraldo adds. \u201cFarmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plants are capable of growing more vaccines<\/p>\n

Giraldo and a team of scientists from UC-San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University say the key to making edible vaccines are chloroplasts. These are small organs inside plant cells which help convert sunlight into energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re tiny, solar-powered factories that produce sugar and other molecules which allow the plant to grow,\u201d Giraldo explains. \u201cThey\u2019re also an untapped source for making desirable molecules.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previous studies have shown that it\u2019s possible for chloroplasts to express genes which are not a natural part of that plant. Giraldo\u2019s team accomplished this by sending genetic material inside of a protective casing into plant cells.<\/p>\n

In the new study, Giraldo teamed with UC-San Diego\u2019s Professor Nicole Steinmetz to use nanotechnology<\/a> to deliver more genetic material into chloroplasts.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur idea is to repurpose naturally occurring nanoparticles, namely plant viruses, for gene delivery to plants<\/a>,\u201d Steinmetz says. \u201cSome engineering goes into this to make the nanoparticles go to the chloroplasts and also to render them non-infectious toward the plants.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons I started working in nanotechnology was so I could apply it to plants and create new technology solutions. Not just for food, but for high-value products as well, like pharmaceuticals,\u201d Giraldo adds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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COVID-19 Vaccines in your salad? Scientists growing medicine-filled plants to replace injections. RIVERSIDE, Calif. \u2014 Vaccinations can be a controversial subject for many people, especially when it comes to injections. So what if you could replace your next shot with a salad instead? Researchers at the University of California-Riverside are working on a way to Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[941,801,1059,1061,804,40,5,1087,8,1],"tags":[1198],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14707,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14704\/revisions\/14707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}