Brome mosaic virus PDB 1J59 (image: JY Sgro; UW-Madison)
“This technology may be rapidly repurposed to synthesize bulk amounts of vaccine and diagnostic proteins in emergencies"
Plant viruses can be just as devastating for agricultural crops and the security of food supply as some of the world's most notorious viruses, SARS-CoV-2 among them, have been for the human population. Plant viruses can be useful as well as harmful, however, and new biotechnology research at the James Hutton Institute is pointing the way to how plant viruses can be harnessed to produce vaccines. Eventually, this technology could improve the UK’s vaccine production capacity.
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