Potatoes battle diarrhea, bananas beat viral infections
Scientist leads movement for new vaccine types

Children and adults around the world who dread vaccination shots have great news looming on the horizon — someday, all they may have to do is eat their potatoes, bananas, or other genetically engineered food.

Scientists working under Dr. Charles J. Arntzen, president and CEO of Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Inc., have infused raw potatoes with some genetic material from the strain of E. coli bacterium which causes traveler's diarrhea. University of Maryland scientists have noted an immune response in people who ate the potatoes.

Arntzen will be appearing in Ardmore April 14, 1999 as the fourth installment of the Profiles and Perspectives Program, sponsored by The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. He will make a presentation about his research, and the effects it could have on the world health scene, to the public at 7 p.m. in the Southern Oklahoma Technology Center's Conference Room.

Profiles and Perspectives brings a variety of nationally and internationally known speakers, in a wide range of interest areas, to Southern Oklahoma for free public programs similar to those offered in larger and university communities.

Arntzen and his team of scientists are now working on another food in which to transport vaccinations — bananas. Bananas tend to be a better delivery system for vaccines because the raw fruit is palatable and can be grown in much of the developing world.

And if they can successfully defend tourists against E. coli bacteria, the scientists are already eyeing their next step —through vaccinations in engineered food, attacking the viral diarrhea that annually kills more than 3 million children in third world countries, plus waging war against other infectious disease.

Questions about proper dosage, longevity, and overall reliability of the immunity produced by the vaccine are the main focus of the research. However, answers may be as long as a decade away.

Arntzen has held faculty positions at the University of Illinois and Michigan State University, and visiting professorships in France, Australia, and China. His primary research interests are in plant molecular biology and protein engineering, as well as the utilization of plant biotechnology for enhancement of food quality and value, for expression of pharmacologically active products in transgenic plants, and for overcoming health and agricultural constraints in the developing world.

Arntzen also has served as a consultant and/or on boards and advisory boards to numerous agricultural industries; was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1983 and to the National Academy of Sciences in India the next year; and has been a member of numerous national and international committees serving general scientific interests. He is a fellow of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, and received the Award for Superior Service from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for international project leadership in India.

He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Minnesota, and his Ph.D. from Purdue University. The Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Inc., is a not-for-profit corporation affiliated with Cornell University.