GREY:MDCGF - Post Discussion
Post by
luckyluuke on Apr 18, 2013 1:41pm
Who knew?
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/08/23/bird-flu-outbreak-the-vaccine-patch-is-in-the-mail If you read through the article you will see that VLPs from tobacco plants are involved, wonder who that would be?
The idea is the government could stockpile enough of these and we could send them through the U.S. Postal Service come rain or shine or pandemic," he says. "If the swine flu virus had been any more virulent, the healthcare system could have broken completely down."
The vaccine is made using a particle found in tobacco plants. Most current vaccines are made using chicken egg cells, which could become tricky if a bird flu pandemic breaks out. Carter says the virus-like particle in tobacco plants can be quickly changed to adapt to new bird flu strains.
"The response [to a new strain] should be much quicker than egg-based vaccines," he says. "In the case of a bird flu, producing a vaccine using eggs is not the smartest thing to do, because the flu can be lethal to the egg cells."
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