The bright idea has dawned on scientists to move beyond needles for the Great Vax Reset, and to just put it directly into vegetables! People could grow their own vaccine-genetically modified lettuces in their own gardens, and consume vaccines with every burger. When I first saw this at a particular site, I thought it was a joke, but a bit more checking revealed that these scientists are deadly serious. Deadly. Serious. It will put a whole new argument for little Johnnie not wanting to eat his veges. Of course, all the more reason to grow vegetables at home, as is done in Russia, which I will cover below.
“Prof. Giraldo “We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens. Farmers could grow entire fields.”
Injectable vaccines could be a thing of the past, with University of California Riverside (UCR) researchers investigating turning edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories and make edible vaccines, which could have significant implications in combating COVID-19.
Backed by a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, the project works by showing how DNA with mRNA vaccines can be delivered into plant cells in a way that lets them replicate. If this works, it could mean that plants could produce as much mRNA as a traditional vaccine injection.
“Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person,” UNCR's Department of Botany and Plant Science's Prof. Juan Pablo Giraldo said in a statement.
“We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens,” added Giraldo, who is leading the research and working in collaboration with researchers from UC San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University. “Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it.”
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2021/09/16/grow-and-eat-your-own-vaccines
“The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories.
Messenger RNA or mRNA technology, used in COVID-19 vaccines, works by teaching our cells to recognize and protect us against infectious diseases.
One of the challenges with this new technology is that it 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 with the ability to be stored at room temperature.
The project’s goals, made possible by a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, are threefold: showing that DNA containing the mRNA vaccines can be successfully delivered into the part of plant cells where it will replicate, demonstrating the plants can produce enough mRNA to rival a traditional shot, and finally, determining the right dosage.
“Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person,” said Juan Pablo Giraldo, an associate professor in UCR’s Department of Botany and Plant Sciences who is leading the research, done in collaboration with scientists from UC San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University.
“We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens,” Giraldo said. “Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it.”
Chloroplasts (magenta color) in leaves expressing a green fluorescent protein. The DNA encoding for the protein was delivered by targeted nanomaterials without mechanical aid by applying a droplet of the nano-formulation to the leaf surface. (Israel Santana/UCR)
Key to making this work are chloroplasts — small organs in plant cells that convert sunlight into energy the plant can use. “They’re tiny, solar-powered factories that produce sugar and other molecules which allow the plant to grow,” Giraldo said. “They’re also an untapped source for making desirable molecules.”
In the past, Giraldo has shown that it is possible for chloroplasts to express genes that aren’t naturally part of the plant. He and his colleagues did this by sending foreign genetic material into plant cells inside a protective casing. Determining the optimal properties of these casings for delivery into plant cells is a specialty of Giraldo’s laboratory.
For this project Giraldo teamed up with Nicole Steinmetz, a UC San Diego professor of nanoengineering, to utilize nanotechnologies engineered by her team that will deliver genetic material to the chloroplasts.
"Our idea is to repurpose naturally occurring nanoparticles, namely plant viruses, for gene delivery to plants," Steinmetz said. "Some engineering goes into this to make the nanoparticles go to the chloroplasts and also to render them non-infectious toward the plants."
Plant viruses provide naturally occurring nanoparticles that are being repurposed for gene delivery into plant cells. (Nicole Steinmetz/UCSD)
For Giraldo, the chance to develop this idea with mRNA is the culmination of a dream. “One of the reasons I started working in nanotechnology was so I could apply it to plants and create new technology solutions. Not just for food, but for high-value products as well, like pharmaceuticals,” Giraldo said.
Giraldo is also co-leading a related project using nanomaterials to deliver nitrogen, a fertilizer, directly to chloroplasts, where plants need it most.
Nitrogen is limited in the environment, but plants need it to grow. Most farmers apply nitrogen to the soil. As a result, roughly half of it ends up in groundwater, contaminating waterways, causing algae blooms, and interacting with other organisms. It also produces nitrous oxide, another pollutant.
This alternative approach would get nitrogen into the chloroplasts through the leaves and control its release, a much more efficient mode of application that could help farmers and improve the environment.
The National Science Foundation has granted Giraldo and his colleagues $1.6 million to develop this targeted nitrogen delivery technology.
“I’m very excited about all of this research,” Giraldo said. “I think it could have a huge impact on peoples’ lives.””
He is not kidding. Maybe it might be possible to combine the vax with particles that block the sun, for climate change, combining everything in a one-stop New World Order shop? Anyway, all the more reason to home grow as much food as possible, as is done present in Russia, and if they can do it, so can we:
“Almost half of Russia’s food is grown in backyard gardens!
While most of the world is completely dependent on industrial agriculture, the Russian people feed themselves.
As recently as 2011, a full 40% of the food produced in Russia came from small, household gardens called dachas.
That number is down from the peak of the communist era, when 90% of the nation’s food came from dachas – small plots of land given to the people by the government for growing food.
But 40% is still huge compared to the less than 1% of American food still grown on small, family-owned farms.
In colonial America, farming was the primary livelihood for 90% of the population. Today, farmers and ranchers represent only 1 percent of employed Americans.
That’s because of the control of our nation’s food supply shifting into fewer and fewer hands.
The shift hasn’t been nearly as dramatic in Russia, where dacha gardens produced 80% of the nation’s fruit and berries, 66% of the vegetables, 80% of the potatoes and half of the milk (much of it consumed raw) in 2011, according to the Russian Statistics Service.
In 2003, the Russian government passed the Private Garden Plot Act entitling citizens to private plots of land (between 2 and 5 acres) for free.
Dachas can be used for gardening and building small summer homes.
Many Russians spend holidays and every warm weekend of the year at their dachas, which also serve as retreats in nature, away from the busy cities.”
Covid gives yet another reason for this decentralised food production.