"Modern bio-pharmaceuticals are needed in ever-increasing amounts, and are becoming more and more complex to produce. Transgenic plants offer a eukaryotic expression system that is highly scalable, and which may help to address many of the production problems that will be faced in the future. In the last 20 years, proof of concept for a number of plant-derived pharmaceuticals has been obtained and several candidate products are now poised to enter human clinical trials"   - Professor Julian Ma - Meetings Chair


09:15 – 09:45 Registration – tea/coffee and biscuits
 
09:45 – 10:00 Introduction by the Chair – Professor Julian Ma

10:00 – 10:30  Biosafety and Risk Assessment of PMPs
 Dr Penny Sparrow - John Innes Centre

Will cover the biosafety and risk assessment (regulation) issues surrounding the use of GM plants to produce therapeutic proteins.From choice of host, location etc and perhaps looking at the socio /political issues.

10:30 – 11:00   Use of viral IRES elements in plant biotechnology
 Dr Lisa Roberts – University of Surrey

Internal ribosome entry site (IRES) elements found in the genomes of certain viruses are able to direct a novel mechanism of protein synthesis which is cap-independent. These elements have been exploited in mammalian biotechnology vectors to allow the production of more than one protein in the same cell at the same time. I will describe a novel IRES element from an insect virus which functions efficiently in mammalian, insect and plant systems and discuss opportunities for its utility in plant

11:00 – 11:30  Morning tea/coffee 

11.30 –12.00  Expression of recombinant proteins in the plant secretory pathway
Dr Lorenzo Frigerio - University of Warwick

I¡¦ll present case studies showing that protein targeting is a fundamental variable for the successful production of heterologous proteins. I¡¦ll also introduce an ongoing project to test how the plant secretory pathway can respond/adapt to the synthesis of large amount of recombinant proteins.

12:00-12:30 Virus-based systems for the production of antigens and antibodies in plants
Dr George Lomonossoff - Department of Biological Chemistry Norwich

Plant viruses are attractive vectors for the production of foreign proteins in plants for several reasons: many grow to very high titres in their hosts, their genomes are small and easy to manipulate and the infection cycle is relatively rapid. We have used autonomously replicating vectors based on the legume virus, Cowpea mosaic virus, to produce both antigens and antibodies in plants. The material has been shown to have the desired activity when administered to animals. Furthermore we have developed combined transgene/viral vectors systems which will have advantages in terms of biocontainment.

12.30 – 13.30 Lunch in the exhibition hall

13.30 – 14:00 Pathway engineering to maximise protein yield from the plant secretory pathway
Dr Jurgen Denecke, University of Leeds

14.00 – 14.30 Rabies Virus-Neutralising Antibodies Produced In Plants
Craig van Dolleweerd, St Georges Hospital-University London

14:30  – 15:30  Production of Thermo-Tool-Based Candidate Vaccine Against Anthrax in
Clonal root Cultures
Dr Vidadi Yusibov - Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology

We report here a new approach to developing vaccine against Bacillus anthracis using a thermo-stable protein ƒÒ-1,3-1,4-glucanase of Clostridium thermocellum as a carrier for target polypeptides. The principal virulence factor of B. anthracis is a multi-component toxin secreted by the organism, that consists of three separate gene products designated protective antigen (PA), lethal factor (LF) and edema factor (EF). Mice immunized with three doses of plant-produced target antigen mounted strong neutralizing antibody responses and were protected when challenged with Lethal Toxin.

15:30 – 16:00 TBA  Ms Denise Sobol, SemBioSys
   
16:00    Chairman’s summing up