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Science

Why vaccination by potato got chopped ....

One of the first human trials of an edible vaccine produced promising results, but the vaccine, a potato genetically engineering to produce a hepatitis B protein, has been abandoned because of fears that “pharm” crops could be mixed up with normal produce.

Details of the potato’s trial have only just been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0409899102).

When 42 volunteers ate two or three doses of the raw potato, concentrations of hepatitis B antibodies in their blood increased up to 60-fold.

The idea of edible vaccines like this was to enable developing countries to produce cheep vaccines that could be stored without refrigerators. But enthusiasm has cooled because of fears that vaccine-laden fruit and veg might be confused with normal produce, with potentially dangerous consequences.

So the team that developed the vaccine axed the project two years ago. Instead, it is switching to producing vaccines in non-food plants such as Nicotiana benthamiana, a relative of tabacco. The idea is to immunise people by giving them pills containing the preserved, ground-up leaves of the plants.

“We don’t say ‘edible’ any more,” says team leader Charles Arntzen of Arizona State University, one of the pioneers in the field. “We say, ‘heat-stable oral vaccines’ now.”

From NewScientist 19 February 2005 Click here to visit the website


Copy Cats – cloning to conserve endangered species

Cloning technology has hit the headlines again recently, with the successful cloning of Nicky, a domestic cat as a replacement for a much-loved pet. In the coming year, we may also be hearing reports of the cloning of less well-known cat species.

One of the applications of cloning technology is the preservation of endangered species. Conservationists are currently looking at cloning as a promising technique in maintaining numbers of the South African black-footed cat, a small and elusive species. Following this, we may be seeing clones of the world’s smallest cat, the rusty spotted cat of India and Sri Lanka.

The first successful cat clone, cc, was born in December 2001, following work done by Martha Gomez and her team at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans. This opened the door to the use of cloning as a conservation methodology. The first experiments involved the African wild cat, Felis lybica, due to its similarity with the domestic cat. In 2003, African wild cats were successfully cloned by transferring wild cat genetic material into enucleated domestic cat eggs, then transferring resulting embryos into surrogate domestic cats. The Audubon Center now has seven surviving African wild cat clones which they aim to breed conventionally.

The next stage in the program is to target rarer cat species. There are dwindling numbers of the South African black-footed cat, Felis nigripes, and so far, no cloned black-foots have survived to term, although a surrogate domestic cat did become pregnant following implantation with black-foot cloned embryos. Live births may be achieved by further refinement of the technique. However, it is also possible that the two species are not sufficiently related to allow successful interspecies cloning. Gomez and her team may next look at transferring normal black-foot embryos to domestic cats to test this possibility further.

The team at the Audubon Center are also preparing to clone the Indian rusty spotted cat using frozen cellular material stored from a cat that died in a US zoo. Only thirteen of these cats remain in captivity, and in the wild, the genetic purity of the species is threatened by interbreeding with domestic cats. Cloning may not guarantee preservation of the species, but it may help.

Cloning looks set to impact on the world of conservation, slowly but surely. In the future we may be using lions to clone and preserve the tiger population. With the success of Nicky, the domestic cat clone, we may be seeing more and more copy cats.

See New Scientist.


Biotechnology forges ahead with Nobel Prize accolade
Biotechnology is enjoying the sweet smell of success! Officially, the Nobel Prize recognises outstanding achievement in either Physiology or Medicine. It is therefore an indication of the impact that biotechnology is having on the field of healthcare that the 2004 Nobel Prize has been awarded to cutting-edge science that is essentially molecular biological in nature. This year’s prize was granted jointly to Dr. Richard Axel and Dr. Linda Buck, U.S. scientists working in the field of odorant receptors and the organisation of the olfactory system.

Work carried out by Drs. Axel and Buck has uncovered a large family of over 1000 genes coding for specific receptors involved in detection of a vast number of particulate odours. That this gene family represents around 3% of the total human genome is suggestive of a more important evolutionary role for the olfactory system. It seems paradoxical that our sense of smell, an almost “aesthetic” sense, is regulated by many more genes than other more vital senses such as our sense of sight. The mystery remains as to why so many genes are involved in olfaction. However, description of the genetic regulation of specific odorant receptors on nasal passage epithelial cell surfaces is ground-breaking work since it is the first of our sensory systems to be understood at the molecular level.

Work is continuing in the exploration of how the receptor produces its effect following stimulation. Determination of how the electrical impulses produced in stimulated neurones actually become a perceived smell may earn Nobel Prizes in the future!

See Biotech International
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