My PhD project is centred around the efficient production of plant-made vaccines.

Here is a brief outline of my project:

Project Title
The Effect of Sub-cellular Localisation of Plant-Made Antigens on Immunogenicity and Antigen Release

Abstract
Plant systems are an advantageous platform for production of therapeutic proteins including recombinant sub-unit vaccines. Benefits of vaccine production in plants include the ability to rapidly and cheaply scale production while remaining human pathogen-free, and the opportunity to manipulate post-translational antigen modifications. Due to both logistical and immunological benefits, vaccination by oral delivery to the mucosal immune system is often preferential to systemic delivery. However, the use of plant-derived vaccines to induce long-lasting protective immune responses has not been consistantly show between plant systems and antigen types. This work aims to manipulate plant systems to induce reliable immune responses. The inherent bio-encapsulation of antigens in plant cells may act as a pharmaceutical carrier system, protecting antigen integrity during its passage in the gut. Sub-cellular localisation of model antigen accumulation in the cytosol, vacuoles, endoplasmic reticulum, apoplast and chloroplast will be engineered using signal peptide and various transient and stable transformation techniques. In addition, protein modification including glycosylation species and conformational integrity will be characterised in lines of tobacco cell suspension, tobacco leaf tissue and tomato fruit. These samples will be used in a series of small animal trials to determine the site of antigen release in the gut and the specific immune response to plant-derived antigen presentation, and will investigate whether variation in sub-cellular localisation impacts consistancy and strength of immune response to vaccine administration.

Supervisors
Dr Amanda Walmsley
Dr John Hamill

Lab Webpage
http://www.biolsci.monash.edu.au/staff/fellows/walmsley.html