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https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/07/ [login to see] /a-covid-vaccine-grown-in-plants-measures-up
A Canadian biotech firm is reporting positive results from a large study of its COVID-19 vaccine. What makes it unusual is that the key ingredient of the vaccine is grown in plants.
Medicago has already developed an experimental flu vaccine in Nicotiana benthamian, a plant related to tobacco. When the pandemic struck, the company decided to try to make a COVID-19 vaccine.
Now it appears those efforts have succeeded.
"This is an incredible moment for Medicago and for novel vaccine platforms," Medicago CEO and President Takashi Nagao said in a statement.
Vaccines work by showing the immune system something that looks like a virus, but isn't. Doing that allows the immune system to prepare itself in case the real virus should show up.
A Canadian biotech firm is reporting positive results from a large study of its COVID-19 vaccine. What makes it unusual is that the key ingredient of the vaccine is grown in plants.
Medicago has already developed an experimental flu vaccine in Nicotiana benthamian, a plant related to tobacco. When the pandemic struck, the company decided to try to make a COVID-19 vaccine.
Now it appears those efforts have succeeded.
"This is an incredible moment for Medicago and for novel vaccine platforms," Medicago CEO and President Takashi Nagao said in a statement.
Vaccines work by showing the immune system something that looks like a virus, but isn't. Doing that allows the immune system to prepare itself in case the real virus should show up.
A COVID vaccine grown in plants measures up
Posted from npr.org
Canada
Medical
Health
Drugs
Pharmaceuticals
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."In Medicago's case, the vaccine look-alike is something called a "virus-like particle" produced in plant cells that were given genetic instructions to make the coronavirus spike protein.
The new results come from a study of more than 24,000 volunteers in six different countries. Half got the vaccine, half a placebo. When the study reached approximately 165 cases of COVID-19 among the participants, it triggered a review of the results."...
..."In Medicago's case, the vaccine look-alike is something called a "virus-like particle" produced in plant cells that were given genetic instructions to make the coronavirus spike protein.
The new results come from a study of more than 24,000 volunteers in six different countries. Half got the vaccine, half a placebo. When the study reached approximately 165 cases of COVID-19 among the participants, it triggered a review of the results."...
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