Edible AD vaccine grown in GM rice

Researchers in Japan are attempting to grow an edible vaccine against Alzheimer's disease. According to a report in the Nikkei Weekly, a government institute in Moriaka, Iwate prefecture is growing genetically-engineered rice plants that express beta-amyloid, a protein that aggregates in the brains of AD patients.

One of the scientists involved in the project, Yasuji Yoshida, a senior researcher at the National Agricultural Research Center for Tohoku Region, told the Nikkei that eating the rice triggers the body's immune system to make antibodies against amyloid-beta and thus slows down the development of the protein aggregates that cause the brain malfunctions of AD.

At the moment, scientists have not been able to get stable expression of amyloid-beta in the rice grains but speculate that the variation is caused by inconsistencies in growing conditions. Once the amount of protein expression in each grain is constant, the researchers hope to test the edible vaccine in animals.