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Second Circular and Provisional Conference Program for PBVA 2005

Plant-Based Vaccines & Antibodies
Plant Expression Systems for Recombinant Pharmacologics
PBVA 2005 – 8-10 June 2005, Radisson SAS Hotel, Prague, Czech Republic

Scientific Advisory Panel

Conference Co-chairman:
Julian Ma (St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, UK)
Ralph Bock (MPI/MPP, Potsdam-Golm, Germany)

Charles Arntzen (Arizona State University, USA)
John Clements (Tulane University, USA)
Carole Cramer (Virginia Tech, USA)
Henry Daniell (University of Central Florida, USA)
Kevin Whaley (Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, USA)
Kerr Anderson (Dow Chemical, USA)
Peter Heifetz (Diversa Corporation, USA)

Conference Scope/Coverage

Infectious diseases are the most important global cause of death, and vaccination programmes are widely recognised as providing an important means for prevention, if not eradication of disease. From a global perspective, the preponderance of infectious disease is found in developing countries, where access to vaccines is limited, predominantly for reasons of cost. Therefore, although many effective vaccines have been developed, they are not available to the populations who need them most and whilst there is an undoubted need to develop new vaccines to counter major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, it must also be recognised that it is equally important to develop technologies to produce existing medicines and vaccines more cheaply and in greater quantities with enhanced vaccine stability.

Transgenic plants are an alternative system for the expression of recombinant medicines – antibodies, antigens and therapeutics. Plants are the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly producers of protein on the planet, they have minimal nutritional requirements – soil water and sunlight and as a production system for recombinant proteins they have a number of key advantages:

PBVA 2005 will offer an international forum to review the current state of research and applications/development of vaccines and antibodies expressed in plants, PBVA 2005 will allow international researchers to evaluate the prospects for such systems and the current barriers/limitations faced by these technologies.

PBVA 2005 will aim to attract an international audience of researchers, clinicians, and representatives for academia, industry and government/regulatory/public health organizations. Representatives for the human, veterinary, plant communities with an interest in vaccinology, immunology, biotechnology issues in relation to plant-based systems will find PBVA 2005 of value.

PBVA 2005 will seek to develop the synergy between the human and veterinary medical/immunological/plant biotechnology communities by focussing on the immunology, vaccinology, delivery, adjuvants, and efficacy of plant based proteins.

Conference Sessions

The PBVA 2005 conference will focus on the following main session topics:

Pharma-Planta

The Pharma-Planta Project is a consortium of 39 principal investigators from institutions including SMEs in Europe and S. Africa. Pharma-Planta has been funded by the European Commission as part of the Sixth Framework Programme in the area of Plant platforms for immunotherapeutic biomolecule production.

Pharma-Planta aims to build a plant based production platform for pharmaceuticals in Europe and to enter the first candidates of this pipeline into Phase I clinical trial. We will develop robust risk-assessment and risk-management practices based on health and environmental impact, and we will work with EU regulatory authorities to ensure safety and acceptance.

The Pharma-Planta website can be found at: www.pharma-planta.org

For more information about Pharma-Planta please contact Dr Julian Ma: jma@sghms.ac.uk

Closing date for poster abstract submissions Friday 27th May 2005

The PBVA 2005 Scientific Advisory panel acknowledge the support of the following sponsors: