This project outlines work towards the use of plants for the production of
pharmaceutical based products.

To accomplish this a system comprised of a
recombinant plant virus particle expressing antigenic sequences from viral pathogens will be used. The objectives are as follows :

- to use plants to develop the technology to produce edible, oral vaccines;
- to use plants to develop the technology to produce diagnostic reagents
including edible vaccines.

This project will describe the viral pathogens to be studied, how the epitopes of these pathogens will be identified, how these sequences will be produced in plants and subsequently tested in both model and target animals for the development of vaccines. It will also describe how the plant produced sequences can also be used for the development of diagnostic products.

The completion of the research outlined in this project will be an important step towards using plants as a way to generate raw materials for pharmaceutical products instead of as just commodities. This would provide the European farmer with an opportunity of access to a new and lucrative market : pharmaceutical products.