Current Status on: Biopharming: Crops for the Production of Therapeutic & Pharmaceutical Proteins
Current status on: Biopharming: crops for the production of Therapeutic & Pharmaceutical proteins
Biopharming, also known as molecular farming, is the production of pharmacologically active substances, either induced or increased through the application of genetic engineering. The first instance of artificial gene expression in an organism to produce a pharmaceutical product was the synthesis of insulin in the bacterium E. coli (Goeddel et al., 1979). This type of biotechnology has since moved from microbial cell cultures to applications in eukaryotic organisms, such as plants and animals. The first genetically modified (GM) plants to be used for biopharming were tobacco and tomato plants which produced human serum albumin (Sijmons et al., 1990). Since those early breakthroughs, a wide range of plant-derived pharmaceutical and therapeutic proteins have been produced, including antibodies, subunit vaccines, human blood products, hormones and growth regulators (Twyman et al., 2003). There have been advances in methodology also; plant cell cultures and plants as ‘bioreactors’ have been used as techniques to more efficiently extract the protein product and modification of genes controlling storage and secretion shows potential for more effective extraction.
Biopharming has a very valid use as a humanitarian tool, with Golden Rice having the potential to save millions of people at risk of blindness due to lack of dietary vitamin A and the concept of vaccines produced in food crops that can simply be consumed directly. Many products have been developed without ever reaching the market and numerous companies have gone bankrupt in pursuit of economical biopharming, for example, Biolex Therapeutics (Bagley, 2012)and Large Scale Biology Corp (Bloomburg, n.d.). As GM technology becomes increasingly prevalent throughout the world and pressures to reduce the use of conventional chemical-based methods in agriculture and other forms of industry, it’s applicability to the
Biopharming, also known as molecular farming, is the production of pharmacologically active substances, either induced or increased through the application of genetic engineering. The first instance of artificial gene expression in an organism to produce a pharmaceutical product was the synthesis of insulin in the bacterium E. coli (Goeddel et al., 1979). This type of biotechnology has since moved from microbial cell cultures to applications in eukaryotic organisms, such as plants and animals. The first genetically modified (GM) plants to be used for biopharming were tobacco and tomato plants which produced human serum albumin (Sijmons et al., 1990). Since those early breakthroughs, a wide range of plant-derived pharmaceutical and therapeutic proteins have been produced, including antibodies, subunit vaccines, human blood products, hormones and growth regulators (Twyman et al., 2003). There have been advances in methodology also; plant cell cultures and plants as ‘bioreactors’ have been used as techniques to more efficiently extract the protein product and modification of genes controlling storage and secretion shows potential for more effective extraction.
Biopharming has a very valid use as a humanitarian tool, with Golden Rice having the potential to save millions of people at risk of blindness due to lack of dietary vitamin A and the concept of vaccines produced in food crops that can simply be consumed directly. Many products have been developed without ever reaching the market and numerous companies have gone bankrupt in pursuit of economical biopharming, for example, Biolex Therapeutics (Bagley, 2012)and Large Scale Biology Corp (Bloomburg, n.d.). As GM technology becomes increasingly prevalent throughout the world and pressures to reduce the use of conventional chemical-based methods in agriculture and other forms of industry, it’s applicability to the
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