Collaboration looks to produce hothouse tomatoes so good they could become the ultimate cure-all

[Source: Philip S. Moore, Inside Tucson Business] - “Eat your fruits and vegetables, they’re good for you.” That admonition virtually everyone heard growing up, is taking a turn in the biotech world. Sonora Transplants, in collaboration with researchers, is embarking on a plan that could lead to commercially producing genetically engineered plants for the pharmaceutical industry and even make tomato-based vaccines that can be taken orally and produce an immune response against certain diseases.

The vaccine idea has been tested on chickens against Exotic Newcastle’s Disease where research has shown the tomato-based product can be freeze-dried, powdered, then put into a capsule. “They work,” says Guy Cardineau, research professor at the Biodesign Institute, which is sponsored by Arizona State University’s Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccinology.

Plants can be prolific producers of a variety of engineered oils, fibers and proteins all at the same time. And ASU’s research has found that the plant oils and proteins don’t need to be refined. “That’s why we’ve been trying to get pharmaceutical companies interested,” Cardineau said. “If we can simply harness that protein production capacity in plants to focus on proteins of interest to them, we can reduce their costs.”But all of that is three years or more away.

First, the plan is to develop a specialized hybrid tomato plant for the hothouse industry in Southern Arizona and Sonora. Working on that is a collaboration of Sonora Transplants, the University of Arizona’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC) and ASU’s Biodesign Institute.Chieri Kubota, plant biologist and physiology professor for CEAC, has perfected a technique for growing up to 180 pounds of premium quality tomatoes in a one-square meter. Now, she’s helping Sonora Transplants to adapt that technique.From there, work will be done to expand on the graft platform strategy for tomatoes to further develop genetically engineered plants. The work is being financed with a grant of $50,000 from the Science Foundation of Arizona and matching money from UA.

Kubota is a former researcher in Japan, where engineered plant production is more common. This project will be multi-phased. First is establishing that transplant production is feasible. Raising plants for pharmaceutical use is a long-term goal but, she said, that should happen.Sonora Transplants CEO Ron Richman says his company is finalizing its financing, which he hopes will be finished by the end of August.“By December, we expect to have facilities and equipment in place, and be ready to begin production by the first of the year,” Richman said.As that continues, he says, the company will not only gain experience, it will provide the cash flow that will allow it to move into drought and disease resistant plants.

If the timeline holds, in three years Richman said, “We’ll be ready with a platform for producing things that the pharmaceutical industry would want.”Tucson is “at the nexus” of biotechnology, agricultural science and pharmaceutical development, he said.“There’s a skill set here that’s unique,” Richman said. “Ultimately, we could be talking about dozens of companies, and hundreds of people working in the industry.”

Sonora Transplants’ Richman has over 30 years’ experience in business development and marketing with IBM. He is working with Robert Schatz, who has been involved in global securities research and sales for 18 years, including time as an analyst for Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo. Both are also officers in Innovative Technologies Development Center, formerly known as the International Trade Development Center. Richman is the chief operating officer and Schatz is the chief finance officer. Among the finance options they’re pursuing is a possible grant from the National Science Foundation.

Cardineau says the partnership among ASU’s Biodesign, the UA’s CEAC and Sonora Transplants is “allowing us to explore our collaborative potential to create a model system to demonstrate that we really can do this.”Once that’s proven, he said “everyone seems to think we have a wonderful opportunity to build on the technology we already have in the state to develop a new business entity and I’m inclined to agree. If we can do this and do it on an economically feasible basis, there’s no real limit to what can be done.”