( s. Researchers then injected the vac...)Effective, safe anthrax vaccine can be grown in tobacco plants

Researchers then injected the vaccine into mice to immunize them against anthrax and sent the mice to NIH labs, where they survived doses of anthrax several times stronger than the amounts to which humans have been exposed.

The next step for the anthrax vaccine would involve a company working with NIH to conduct clinical trials. Human subjects would be injected only with the vaccine and not with anthrax itself, and scientists would then check the subjects' immunity levels. The vaccine later could be mass-produced and stockpiled for emergencies.

Daniell conducted his study with part of a $1 million NIH grant and a $2 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant that cover research related to genetic engineering in plants as a way to produce therapies for several diseases. Daniell's work holds promise for treating other diseases, including diabetes and hepatitis, and improving vaccines for plague, cholera and other bioterrorism agents.

Daniell is developing a new technology that would enable vaccines to be administered orally and allow effective and less expensive treatments to be more accessible worldwide. He believes fruits and vegetables such as carrots and tomatoes are the keys to figuring out a way for people to take anthrax vaccines orally in capsules of dried plant cells that contain correct doses of the protective antigen.

If that research is successful, the needs for requiring doctors to administer the shots and for shipping vaccines in refrigerated trucks, both of which can be especially difficult in poorer nations, would be eliminated.

The military now administers the vaccine with three shots in the first four weeks, three more in the next 17 months and then annual booster shots, according to the Pentagon (www.anthrax.mil).

Daniell, who is the first UCF Trustee Chair in Life Sciences, began teaching at UCF in 1998. He has formed a biotechnology company called Ch
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Source:University of Central Florida