Testing the world’s first edible cholera vaccine… direct results

Japanese biologists have developed the world’s first edible cholera vaccine, based on genetically modified rice grains, and successfully tested it on volunteers.

Professor at the University of Tokyo, Hirose Kiyono, said that the results of the first experiments are optimistic, as it was observed that the volunteers’ increased immunity and the strength of their reaction against cholera bacteria, the higher the dose.
Professor Kiyono and his colleagues explained that the vaccine does not require its production and use any special conditions, as it is a powder made from milled grains of genetically modified rice, and scientists have inserted into the genetically modified rice genome a part of the DNA of cholera bacteria that bears responsibility for the production of certain elements of a protein. CTB” as a major toxin of bacteria.

Experiments on blood samples of people who have recovered from cholera showed that the vaccine provokes a strong immune response and causes the human body to produce large amounts of antibodies capable of merging with the cholera bacteria membrane.

Scientists tested the vaccine on 60 volunteers, half of whom received the real vaccine. The other half received a solution of plain rice flour. Tests showed that the vaccine formed a large number of antibodies in two-thirds of the volunteers.