Cuba makes medical breakthrough
Havana, Cuba, June 30, 2006 - Cuba has made a scientific breakthrough in creating a "plantibody" for the production of the hepatitis B vaccine.
The Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) dubbed it a "plantibody" which is actually a monoclonal antibody from transgenic plants - tobacco.
Deputy Director of CICB, Carlos Borroto, told a news conference in Havana that the plantibody was approved on April 11 for human use and production is well underway. So far 145 million doses were used in trials without single problem being reported he said.
The plantibody was created from a non-commercial version of the ancestral tobacco plant which is grown with thicker leaves in an inert environment without soil.
Up to this point, antibodies were derived from lab mice which was a time consuming and costly method.
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http://www.caribbean360.com/News/Caribbean/Stories/2006/06/30/NEWS0000003137.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Sunday June 25, 02:14 PM
Cuba registers antibody for Hepatitis B vaccine
By Prensa Latina
Havana, June 25 (Prensa Latina) A genetic engineering institute in Cuba has registered an antibody that can be used in the production of an anti-hepatitis B vaccine.
This breakthrough in vaccine production was achieved by the Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) here. CIGB Deputy Director General Carlos Borroto described it as a world scientific breakthrough at a press conference here.
Borroto said that the antibody, called CB-Hep.1, made of plants would contribute greatly to the increased production of the anti-hepatitis B vaccine. He added that it would also lower the cost.
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http://in.news.yahoo.com/060625/43/65dj1.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Cuba Ailing? Not Its Biomedical Industry
Tom Fawthrop
The Straits Times, 26 January 2004
MENTION faraway Cuba and most people think of a Caribbean island best known for Havana cigars, rum and the revolutionary exploits of Che Guevara. They probably don't associate it with cutting edge medical research.
Yet Cuban biotechnology is now, among other things, leading the way in the development of a new generation of anti-cancer therapies expected to be available to the European market by 2008.
Given Cuba's cash-strapped economy, its scientific achievements are all the more surprising. It has long been battered by the United States trade embargo, imposed in the 1960s and still in force today. After the Cold War ended, Washington tightened the economic screws further with resulting shortages of consumer goods.
When Marxist revolutionary Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, most of Cuba's resources were ploughed into developing education and health systems. In the mid-1980s, with aid from the Soviet Union, Cuba started to invest heavily in science and biotechnology.
Although it is a small country with only 11 million people, it now boasts 52 scientific research institutes in the capital and more than 12,000 scientists on the whole island.
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http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=3193