The crisper effect: Plants that heal, kill, aid in defence

DOUBLE AGENTS

- Bhanuj Kappal

Can a banana be a snack and a vaccine? Could a cabbage wield a scorpion’s sting?

In labs around the world, scientists are quietly reshaping ideas of what a vegetable can be, as experiments reach for goals far beyond the traditional ones of higher yields, greater nutrition and better taste. Take a look.

The farm-to-table vaccine

The effort to create edible vaccines began in the early 1990s, when researchers first realised that plants could be modified to create foreign proteins, including viral and bacterial antigens.

FOR DECADES, WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO MODIFY FRUITS AND VEGGIES TO CREATE ANTIGENS (AKA VACCINES). IN LABS, POTATOES AND BANANAS HAVE PROVEN EFFECTIVE. THE KEY CHALLENGE HAS BEEN ENSURING THAT PLANTS 'GROW' THE RIGHT DOSE PER UNIT

By the turn of the millennium, Charles Arntzen and his team at Cornell University's Boyce Thompson Institute, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Maryland, had developed and tested the word's first edible vaccine: transgenic potatoes that produced antigens for the Norwalk virus (a common cause of the stomach flu).