Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against infectious diseases in humans - part 1: epidemic and pandemic diseases, including HIV/AIDS and coronaviruses

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2021-04-06Author
Lobato, Maria
Huang, Xin
Alvarez, Derry
He, Wenshu
Armario-Nájera, Victoria
Blanco Perera, Amaya
Cerda, Pedro
Saba-Mayoral, Andrea
Sobrino-Mengual, Guillermo
Vargheese, Ashwin
Abranches, Rita
Abreu, Isabel Alexandra
Balamurugan, Shanmugaraj
Bock, Ralph
Buyel, Johannes F.
Cunha, Nicolau B. da
Daniell, Henry
Faller, Roland
Folgado, André
Gowtham, Iyappan
Häkkinen, Suvi
Kumar, Shashi
Sathish Kumar, Ramalingam
Lacorte, Cristiano
Lomonossoff, George P.
Luís, Ines M.
Ma, Julian K-C
McDonald, Karen A.
Murad, Andre
Nandi, Somen
O'Keef, Barry
Oksman-Caldentey, Kirsi-Marja
Parthiban, Subramanian
Paul, Mathew J.
Ponndorf, Daniel
Rech, Elibio
Rodrigues, Julio C. M.
Ruf, Stephanie
Schillberg, Stefan
Schwestka, Jennifer
Shah, Priya S.
Singh, Rahul
Stoger, Eva
Twyman, Richard M.
Varghese, Inchakalody P.
Vianna, Giovanni R.
Webster, Gina
Wilbers, Ruud H. P.
Suggested citation
Lobato, Maria;
Huang, Xin;
Alvarez, Derry;
He, Wenshu;
Baysal, Can;
Zhu, Changfu;
...
Christou, Paul.
(2021)
.
Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against infectious diseases in humans - part 1: epidemic and pandemic diseases, including HIV/AIDS and coronaviruses.
Plant Biotechnology Journal, 2021, vol. 19, p. 1901-1920.
https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.13657.
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Infectious diseases, also known as transmissible or communicable diseases, are caused by pathogens or parasites that spread in communities by direct contact with infected individuals or contaminated materials, through droplets and aerosols, or via vectors such as insects. Such diseases cause 17% of all human deaths and their management and control places an immense burden on healthcare systems worldwide. Traditional approaches for the prevention and control of infectious diseases include vaccination programmes, hygiene measures and drugs that suppress the pathogen, treat the disease symptoms or attenuate aggressive reactions of the host immune system. The provision of vaccines and biologic drugs such as antibodies is hampered by the high cost and limited scalability of traditional manufacturing platforms based on microbial and animal cells, particularly in developing countries where infectious diseases are prevalent and poorly controlled. Molecular farming, which uses plants for protein expression, is a promising strategy to address the drawbacks of current manufacturing platforms. In this review article, we consider the potential of molecular farming to address healthcare demands for the most prevalent and important epidemic and pandemic diseases, focussing on recent outbreaks of high-mortality coronavirus infections and diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world.
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Plant Biotechnology Journal, 2021, vol. 19, p. 1901-1920European research projects
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