Year: 2022

WE NEED A XXX-FACTOR GRAND CHALLENGE COMPETITION of a €500 M prize for the winner, to crack the biomimicry of earth's advanced and sublime photosynthesis system, to eat CO2 and generate H2 fuel. Humans have put man on the moon. This challenge we can meet. It just needs imaginative incentives to focus the creative scientific talent on this problem. View in LinkedIn

THE NEXT SERIES of blogs relates to using plants, yeast or bacteria to make useful molecules using their biochemical machinery. This is an alternative to traditional chemical synthesis or bulk extraction, which is so often associated with toxic byproducts. View in LinkedIn

PHARMING is the insertion of commercially useful genes into plants and sometimes animals. "The products of pharming are recombinant proteins or their metabolic products. Recombinant proteins are most commonly produced using bacteria or yeast in a bioreactor, but pharming offers the advantage to the producer that it does not require expensive infrastructure, and production capacity can be quickly scaled to meet demand, at greatly reduced cost."" " http://lnkd.in/dAb-fRf) View in LinkedIn

PHARMING HAD A BUMPY START, but remains a logical solution to human needs for inexpensive pharmaceuticals for diseases. Troubles started when a plant engineered to make trypsin was carelessly permitted to enter the normal crop system. "ProdiGene was fined $250,000 and ordered by the USDA to pay over $3 million in cleanup costs. This raised a furor and set the pharming field back, dramatically. Many companies went bankrupt as companies faced difficulties getting permits for field trials and investors fled."" " http://lnkd.in/dAb-fRf) View in LinkedIn

DRUGS MADE IN PLANTS. "Drugs that are based on large biological molecules — known as biologics — have been produced inside genetically engineered animal cells, yeast and bacteria for more than two decades. Insulin has been made by genetically modified Escherichia coli bacteria since 1982." However, the first FDA approval was only in 2012. Today there are about 4 other drugs preparing to be made in tobacco and rice. " " http://lnkd.in/dRt_jVs View in LinkedIn

GREEN TAXOL. Drugs made in plants circumvent the chemical synthesis route that invariably uses toxic and expensive solvents and chemicals. Taxol (Abraxane), the chemotherapeitic drug, was originally made from bulk extracts of Northwest Pacific Yew bark, and in early years this accounted for 100% of production. This quickly threatened natural Yew habitats. Today, however, all Taxol production uses plant cell fermentation technology." " http://lnkd.in/dP8npNm View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR FARMING. "Not so long ago, most pharmaceutical preparations came from plants. However, from the middle of this century, most drugs have been totally or partially synthesised in factories, often through a number of complex and costly steps. Transgenic plants with improved characteristics have already reached the market. Scientists are also turning their attention to the production of high value-added molecules in plants, ranging from biopharmaceuticals to enzymes or ‘nutraceuticals’."" " http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/home/report/english/articles/vol04/art-bio1.htm View in LinkedIn

2004 PHARMING HOTLIST. "The first non-food products of plant bioengineering likely to be commercialised on a large-scale are tailor-made industrial oils and speciality polymers. Calgene is involved in the commercial production of lauric acid...used to make soaps and detergents, using a genetically-engineered rapeseed plant. Other far-reaching developments include the production of erucic acid, a lubricant and feedstock for making nylon 13-13, and isomers of the oleic acid used to make margarine."" " http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/home/report/english/articles/vol04/art-bio1.htm View in LinkedIn

DOE'S TOP 12 MOLECULES IN PLANT FACTORIES (2013). "1,4 succinic, fumaric and malic acids, 2,5 furan dicarboxylic acid, 3 hydroxy propionic acid, aspartic acid, glucaric acid, glutamic acid, itaconic acid levulinic acid, 3-hydroxybutyrolactone, glycerol sorbitol, xylitol/arabinitol" Big change from 2004 hotlist. " " http://lnkd.in/dMPQwJw View in LinkedIn

2013 PHARMING TOPICS. "The scientific program of this eventful meeting covered diverse highlights of biopharming: monoclonal antibodies, virus-like particles from transient and chloroplast expression systems, for example, for Dengue and HPV, apolipoproteins from safflower seeds, and new production platforms, such as potato or hydroponics by rhizosecretion."" " http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/abs/10.2217/imt.12.146 View in LinkedIn