Gates Foundation Gives Funds for Virus-Fighting Tomato
May 8, 2009| |
A USD 100,000 fund has been awarded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to Rutgers University researchers working to develop vaccine-producing transgenic tomatoes. Led by Eric Lam, the Rutgers scientists are employing combinatorial RNA interference (RNAi) to develop resistance-proof vaccines from tomatoes. Combinatorial RNAi molecules can inhibit a virus' lifecycle by targeting several genes. Even if one gene mutates to resist the drug, an RNA molecule can go after one or more alternative genes essential to the virus's replication processes. According to a Rutgers press release, simply growing and eating the tomato may be a way of producing and delivering the RNA therapeutics to economically challenged or remote communities.
Read the press release at http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/research/gates-foundation-aid-20090430/eric-lam-20090430
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