THE SMALLEST DRUG FACTORIES IN THE WORLD
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Drive around New Jersey and look off to the left or right of many of the highways, turnpikes, parkways and lanes and you're likely to see a pharmaceutical factory. Presently 19 of the 25 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world: Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Roche, for example, are headquartered, do research and develop, and manufacture pharmaceuticals in New Jersey. More than 120 smaller companies dot the highways in the research triangle between Newark, New Brunswick and Princeton.
But, wait a minute. Despite its reputation as an industrial state, New Jersey is also the Garden State. It has more than 8,300 farms that grow everything imaginable--soybeans, hay, tomatoes, peaches, corn, potatoes, eggplants, onions, peppers, beans, asparagus, apples, cranberries, blueberries, and strawberries in abundance.
And if you drive out west where the Delaware River sometimes rushes or sloshes between scenic overlooks, cliffs, glens, ravines, and glacial lakes, you see nothing but lush wooded areas. The Pine Barrens, a 1-million acre stretch of coastal plain in central and southern New Jersey, is dominated by pine trees--in a state that is just under 5 million acres in total! It makes you wonder why New Jersey isn't called the Pine Tree State.
If you ever stop and get off the highway at one of the overlooks in the Delaware River Water Gap or you stand among the pine trees down in the Pine Barrens, close your eyes and let your mind run free. Then, if you're aware of some of the new trends in medicine, you might even imagine that the leaves and quills on those trees are budding pharmaceutical factories.
Or if you close your eyes while visiting an asparagus farm in Swedesboro in Gloucester County, you might dream that every spear and tip is a nano-factory able to produce drugs to fight cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, or HIV/AIDS.
Your dream won't quite come true, but almost. It is not likely to be pine needles and asparagus but right now many scientists have been able to create factories to produce vaccines inside the cellular or molecular structures of bananas and potatoes.
Of course, it's a complicated process but as simple summary is: select a plant and engineer it to contain DNA fragments of a disease. This will cause the plant to produce antibodies to fight the disease. Then the antibody-bearing plant can be processed to produce a vaccine or medicine. For decades the medical establishment has produced vaccines in a similar manner.
But more recently scientists have been able to trigger a process in which the antibodies are produced in the tissue of the potato or the banana. In early 2005 scientists found that, for hepatitis B vaccine, genetically modified potatoes may be an alternative to the syringe and needle.
Before the potato scientists proved that it was possible to develop vaccines with bananas as the factory. It is hard to imagine anyone who would prefer getting stuck with a needle to eating a nice ripe banana to become immune to, say, flu or tetanus.
With the more recent developments the link between food and medicine has come full circle. In prehistory the first medicines were undoubtedly developed from long empirical evidence that certain foods made prehistoric people feel better. The first written account of this development comes from a book published in China some 5000 years ago, The Divine Farmer's Materia Medica by Shen Nong, a legendary figure in Chinese mythology.
The story goes that before his time "people ate grasses and drank from rivers; they picked fruit from trees and ate the flesh of molluscs and beetles. At that time there was much suffering from illness and poisoning. So the Divine Farmer taught the people for the first time how to sow and cultivate the five grains and to examine the suitability of the earth, to differentiate dry or waterlogged, fertile, high and lowland. He tasted the flavor of the hundred plants and the sweet or bitterness of river and spring; and he taught the people what to avoid and what to follow."
Even today the folklore of every country contains stories about the curative powers of certain foods: chicken soup, which is probably the most popular food as medicine dish, for instance, or pot liquor from collard greens. According to books like Foods that Heal by Dr. Bernard Jensen there are very few foods that do not have some healing value.
But the true emerging hero in the new edible vaccine field is the tomato, and New Jersey is famous for growing those. In fact in early 2005 the New Jersey State Legislature approved a measure designating the Jersey tomato as the official state vegetable, even though the tomato is technically a fruit.
Vegetable or fruit, the tomato has researchers all over the world working to move it to the top of the list of potential cellular plant factories. Already it is showing great promise in the battle to come up with an edible vaccine for HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B.
Tinkering with the genetic makeup of plants can have a downside, so some scientists say we should move into this field with caution.
Still, there are plenty reasons for optimism. So until the dust settles and all the facts are in, close your eyes and send positive vibrations out there into the universe and maybe soon dinner salads or the goodies in our children's lunch pails will eliminate the need for vaccination needles.
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