VAST fields of maize could soon be churning out antibodies for preventing
sexually transmitted diseases.
Researchers at Epicyte, a biotech company in San Diego, say their technology
promises to make the mass production of therapeutic antibodies easier and cheaper
(see “Hide and seek”).
At the moment, therapeutic antibodies are
produced using hamster ovary cells—an expensive method that produces
limited amounts. But Epicyte’s new “plantibody” technology allows the DNA that
codes for antibodies to be introduced into crop plants such as maize. The
antibodies are only produced in the maize kernels, making it easy to extract
them using current…
