Plants as mRNA Factories for Edible Vaccines

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, the University of California San Diego, and Carnegie Mellon University are studying whether they can turn edible plants, such as lettuce, into mRNA vaccine factories. One of the challenges with mRNA vaccines is that they must be kept cold to maintain stability during transport and storage. If this new project is successful, plant-based mRNA vaccines, which can be eaten, could overcome this challenge by being stored at room temperature. The key is to deliver genetic material to the chloroplast of plants via naturally occurring nanoparticles (viruses) that are engineered so they are not infectious toward plants and humans.