PLAPROVA News

Article in BBSRC Business on the BBSRC Innovator of the Year

Plant pharming system inventors named Innovator of the Year
Professor George Lomonossoff has been awarded the title of BBSRC Innovator of the Year 2012 for his work with Dr Frank Sainsbury, to develop a system for producing vaccines and pharmaceutical proteins in plants. The system could allow vaccines to be produced more rapidly for emergency vaccination programmes in the face of disease pandemics.

Full pdf article

George Lomonossoff talks about winning BBSRC Innovator of the Year 2012 Award

George Lomonossoff wins BBSRC Innovator of the Year 2012 Award

George Lomonossoff has won the BBSRC Innovator of the Year Award (full article on JIC News blog). A Q&A interview with George about his science and success is on the BBSRC website: www.bbsrc.ac.uk/news/

George Lomonossoff appears on Radio Norfolk

George Lomonossoff has been interviewed on Radio Norfolk discussing his nomination for the BBSCR Innovator of the Year 2012 Award. Listen to the interview.

PLAPROVA Article appears in International Innovation, Feb 2012

George Lomonossoff was interviewed for an article in February's International Innovation publication "From Farm to Fork: The Issues at Stake". PLAPROVA Article (pdf download)

Collaboration visits - Jan-Feb 2012

Jan 9-10 2012: George Lomonossoff visited James Hutton Institute (JHI), Dundee, for discussions about reporting and future plants for collaboration.

Feb 6th-7th 2012: George Lomonossoff visited colleagues at the Research Institute of Influenza of Russian Academy of Medical Science, Saint Petersburg, Russia to discuss PLAPROVA reporting and the immunological analysis of candidate influenza vaccines.

Feb 8th-9th 2012: George Lomonossoff visited colleagues at the Centre Bioengineering of the Russian academy of sciences, Moscow, Russia to discuss reporting on PLAPROVA and future collaborations.

Consorium meeting in Torino, Italy

A meeting of the consortium was held on 18th October 2011 in Torino, Italy.

Collaboration visits to Russia

Members of CB RAS team visited INFLRAMS, St Petersburg several times to discuss experiments on evaluation of candidate influenza vaccines in animal models.

Prof. M. Taliansky visited Centre of Bioengineering (Moscow) (September 2011-10 days) in order to refine high yield expression techniques to produce vaccine proteins in plants using triple silencing suppression construct developed at SCRI/TJHI.

Collaboration visit to Plovdiv

George Lomonossoff (JIC) visited Ivan Minkov’s lab. (UoP) July 23-26 2011 for discussions on progress and future work.

Collaboration visit to Italy

Andrew Love (Hutton Institute) visited Emanuela Noris’ lab (CNR), February 7-17 2011 for collaboration on BPV L1: expression in plants, detection and purification techniques.

Third Consortium Meeting takes place in Varna, June 2010

A meeting of the consortium was held in Varna in June 2010.

Consortium members at the Varna Meeting

Research visit to JIC by Gergana Zahmanova

Gergana Zahmanova (UoP) visited George Lomonossoff’s lab (JIC), 6 April – 4 May 2009 and 23 August – 17 September 2010 to carry out plant-based expressed of HBcAg particles using the pEAQ system.

Meeting in Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Keith Saunders attended a meeting at the University of Plovdiv in March 2010 and gave a presentation on the Lomonossoff work as part of the Plaprova Consortium.

Collaboration visit to Dundee

George Lomonossoff visited SCRI Dundee for collaboration discussions in March 2010.

Collaboration visits to Spain

Paolo Lenzi (JIC) visited Luis Enjuanes’ lab (CSIC) 17-19 February 2010 for discussion about strategies for PRRSV proteins expression in plants.

Veterinary Vaccines Conference, Duesseldorf, Germany - 2-3 December 2009

George Lomonossoff will speak at this international conference in December on "Rapid transient methods for the production of potential veterinary vaccines in plants".

Collaboration talks in South Africa

Emanuela Noris (CNR) visited Ed Rybicki’s lab (UCT), September 18-26 2009 for collaborative work on papillomavirus L1 expression.

Collaboration talks in Spain

George Lomonosssoff recently visited Prof. Luis Enjuanes in Madrid for scientific discussions regarding work package 8 of the Plaprova consortium.

George Lomonossoff appears on YouTube to talk about making vaccines from plants

Next consortium meeting to be held in Bulgaria

The next meeting will be held in Varna, Bulgaria in June 2010.

Dr Slavica Matic joins the Noris Laboratory

Dr Slavica Matic has joined the laboratory of Emmanuela Noris in Torino, Italy and started on 13th September 2009.

Second consortium meeting, Moscow, July 2009

The second meeting of the consortium was held on 28th July 2009 at Centre "Bioengineering" Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Representatives from nearly all the laboratories involved in the consortium met to present their latest results and discuss progress. It was also an opportunity for the EU and Russian partners to meet in person. Discussions focussed on progress made so far and opportunities for the future. There were many interesting discussions and several new avenues for research and collaboration were explored.

Plant-Based Vaccines & Antibodies Conference, Verona, Italy - 15-17 June 2009

Work from the project was presented by Paolo Lenzi at the conference in Italy.

Visit of Gergana Zahmanova from the Minkov Laboratory, University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Miss Zahmanova spent 1 month in the Lomonossoff laboratory from April-May 2009.

Visit of Prof. Taliansky to Russia

Prof. M. Taliansky visited the Center of Bioengineering (Moscow) and Moscow State University (April 2009 - 9 days) to develop approaches for the generation (SCRI) and use (MSU) of TRV-based constructs for expression of vaccine proteins in roots.

Dr Paolo Lenzi joins the Lomonossoff Laboratory, March 2009

Dr Paolo Lenzi has joined the Lomonossoff Laboratory in Norwich as a Post Doctoral researcher working on the PLAPROVA project.

First consortium meeting, January 2009

The first meeting of the consortium was held on 21st January 2009 in Norwich. Representatives from all countries involved in the consortium met to present their science and bring members up to date with latest developments. Discussions were centered around the direction of the projects and ways in which each member could provide advice and practical expertise to advance the science in each area.