Automated Production of Plant-Based Vaccines and Pharmaceuticals

TLDR

The study seeks to transform a laboratory‑based biological process into an industrial‑scale operation for rapid production of large quantities of protein‑based medicines. The factory employs tobacco plants and a plant viral vector, with custom robotic systems that plant, nurture, introduce the vector, and harvest biomass under FDA GMP, achieving time, cost, and space efficiency. The fully automated system produces vaccines and therapeutics within weeks, eliminates human contact to prevent contamination, and delivers quick, safe, cost‑effective production suitable for pandemic response.

Abstract

A fully automated "factory" was developed that uses tobacco plants to produce large quantities of vaccines and other therapeutic biologics within weeks. This first-of-a-kind factory takes advantage of a plant viral vector technology to produce specific proteins within the leaves of rapidly growing plant biomass. The factory's custom-designed robotic machines plant seeds, nurture the growing plants, introduce a viral vector that directs the plant to produce a target protein, and harvest the biomass once the target protein has accumulated in the plants—all in compliance with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines (e.g., current Good Manufacturing Practices). The factory was designed to be time, cost, and space efficient. The plants are grown in custom multiplant trays. Robots ride up and down a track, servicing the plants and delivering the trays from the lighted, irrigated growth modules to each processing station as needed. Using preprogrammed robots and processing equipment eliminates the need for human contact, preventing potential contamination of the process and economizing the operation. To quickly produce large quantities of protein-based medicines, we transformed a laboratory-based biological process and scaled it into an industrial process. This enables quick, safe, and cost-effective vaccine production that would be required in case of a pandemic.