Current Research Goals

Current Research projects in the Daniell Molecular Biotechnology Laboratory focus on the development of expression systems for human therapeutic proteins, monoclonal antibodies, vaccines and biopharmaceuticals. The long-term goal is to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and make them available to those who need them the most.

Interferons (IFN)

Interferons (IFN) are cytokines with antiviral, antigrowth and immunomodulatory properties. IFNa is employed as a standard therapy for leukemia, metastasizing carcinoma, karposi sarcoma and viral hepatitis. Among 120 million people infected with hepatitis C virus, 70% have abnormal liver function and 33% with severe cirrhosis. The cost of IFNa 2 therapy is about $26,000 per patient per year, unattainable for most patients in the world who suffer from chronic viral hepatitis.

Insulin-like Growth Factor I (IGF-I)

Insulin-like Growth Factor I (IGF-I) deficiency results in several systematic complications occurring in liver cirrhosis. The requirement of IGF-I per cirrhotic patient per year is 600 mg but the cost per mg is $30,000. However, the best yield reported so far is 5 mg of IGF-I/liter of bacterial culture. Therefore, these human genes have been cloned and expressed in transgenic chloroplasts (up to 10,000 copies of transgenes per cell) resulting in hyper-expression and rapid purification.

Ongoing Projects

Some of the ongoing projects include development edible or intravenous vaccines for bioterrorism agents (anthrax, plague etc.), hepatitis C, amoebiasis, and various cancers including melanoma, expression of tissue factor pathway inhibitor (TFPI) for anticoagulant, anti-inflammatory & anti-cancer effects, human proinsulin for type I diabetes (oral tolerance), human serum albumin (the most used intravenous protein), hemoglobin as a blood substitute, etc.

Non-medical Research

Other, non-medical, projects include expression of biopolymers, phytoremediation of mercury and developments of edible vaccines in tomato, carrot and corn.