Details

For information on this past event please contact Meetings Management

Second Circular and Provisional Conference Program for PBVA 2007

Plant-Based Vaccines & Antibodies
Plant Expression Systems for Recombinant Pharmacologics
18-20 June 2007, University of Verona, Italy

Conference Chairman:
Julian Ma (St. George’s Hospital, University of London, UK)

Local Organiser:
Mario Pezzotti (University of Verona, Italy)

Charles Arntzen (Arizona State University, USA)
Carole Cramer (Arkansas State University, USA)
Kevin Whaley (Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, USA)
Ralph Bock (MPI/MPP, Potsdam-Golm, Germany)
Rainer Fischer (RWTH Aachen, Germany)
Maurice Moloney (SemBioSys Genetics, Calgary, Canada)
Uwe Gottschalk (Sartorius AG Biotechnology, Göttingen, Germany)
John Butler (Bayer Innovation, Dusseldorf, Germany)
Francois Arcand (ERA Plantech, Barcelona, Spain)
Sun Lee (Nexgen Biotechnologies Inc., Daejon-City, Korea)

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, malaria and cancer, 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:

they can synthesize complex proteins
there is potential for protein production scale up on an agricultural level using existing crops
associated cost-benefit advantages with 100-1000 fold production increases in comparison with conventional methods
resistance to GM-plant pharmaceutical research is well below that for GM-food research

PBVA 2007 is the follow-up meeting to the successful PBVA 2005 meeting held in Prague.

PBVA 2007 will offer an international forum to review the current state of research and applications/development of vaccines and antibodies expressed in plants, PBVA 2007 will allow international researchers to evaluate the prospects for such systems and the current barriers/limitations faced by these technologies.

PBVA 2007 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 2007 of value. PBVA 2007 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.

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.

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