Production of Biopharmaceuticals, Antibodies and Edible Vaccines in Transgenic Plants

The use of plants and other botanicals as a source of medicines exists of the earliest stages of civilization. Despite great advances in synthetic organic chemistry, it is estimated that about onefourth of present day prescription drugs still have a botanical origin. Recently, and through modern biotechnology, there has been a revival of interest in obtaining new pharmaceuticals from botanical sources. Through genetic modification, it is now recognized that plants are potentially a new source of pharmaceutical proteins including vaccines, antibodies, blood substitutes and other therapeutic entities. Unlike mammalian-derived rDNA drugs, plant-derived antibodies, vaccines and other proteins are particularly advantageous since they are free of mammalian viral vectors and human pathogens. Advantages offered by plants include also low cost of cultivation and high biomass production, relatively fast “gene to protein” time, low capital and operating costs, excellent scalability, eukaryotic posttranslational modifications and a relatively high protein yield.