so I’m going to start out with a kind of
a sad picture to start out with this is
the hundredth anniversary of the worst
pandemic we’ve ever had the 1918
influenza pandemic which spread
throughout the world and in less than
two years this is how many died this is
actually something that can still happen
again
I read in the Wall Street Journal last
week that they expect another pandemic
like this but it’s going to kill more
because of our global travel and the
urbanization that we have so it can get
worse and just think about the current
flu that we have right now the current
vaccine is only 30% effective and we
can’t do a damn thing about it okay
there’s no flu that we can react seen
who can respond with we just have to
endure it so a lot of people gonna die
because of this that’s because we can’t
respond we don’t have the ability to do
it what we need to do is find a way to
make quick response rapid response and
cheap response to get vaccines out there
let’s leave a few other diseases that
exist out there rabies currently kills
50,000 people every year if we had an
effective low-cost vaccine we could stop
that disease let’s look at a cancer the
human papilloma virus causes cervical
cancer it’s currently the second leading
cause of cancer death of women in the
world it’s caused by a virus that if we
have a vaccine that’s low-cost and
effective and can be rapidly dispersed
we could actually stop this in the
developing countries the cancer death
from this virus cervical cancer is
basically the leading cause of death in
developing countries let’s look at some
other ones that are slowly approaching
from the south dengue dengue currently
affects fifty to a hundred million
people every year of those five hundred
thousand get hemorrhagic fever of those
twenty-two thousand people die
this every year if we had a good
effective and low-cost vaccine we could
stop it then take a look at Zika so Zika
we know that the mothers of the Zika who
have been infected with the Zika virus
may have a lifelong problem and their
child will be developmentally challenged
okay if we had a low-cost
and available vaccine for Zika we could
stop that so your question is how how
can we have low cost effective and
rapidly dispersed vaccines I’m going to
tell you how ok plants I’m not that
plant
this plan okay so this little guy here
take a look at this little guy at this
size can make enough human vaccine for
five people and it can make it quickly
I’m going to show you how in one week
this little pant can be made to make a
vaccine for five people right away so
because of this I’m gonna have to talk a
little bit about technology sorry
so let’s go let’s talk about plants and
plants viruses plants have viruses just
like we do the one thing that’s kind of
neat about them is even though they look
like ours they have no ability to infect
us at all you eat them every day
I was a certified organic farmer for a
long time i lot of plant viruses but
here’s what’s interesting if you were to
take a plant virus and inject it into me
my immune system is gonna see it and say
ah that’s a virus and it’s gonna make
antibodies against it it’s gonna get the
best immunity against that damn little
thing that can’t hurt you okay
so that’s a neat thing to know so what
I’m saying is let’s take that innocent
plant virus that can’t cause disease
let’s put a costume on it to make it
look like a human virus to basically
decorate the outside so it is an actor
playing the role of the actual disease
agent then if I already checked that in
me and now it’s in a costume it’s just
an actor in the costume now if I inject
that into me it’s going to respond and
it’s going to boom my immune systems
gonna see it see that the actor and
build up good antibodies then when the
real one comes looking like that my
immune system knows what to do it’s had
to practice pretty cool huh
okay so let’s go a little bit deeper on
this so how do you make this decoration
happen how would you get this costume on
the outside of it I’m showing you two
subunits of a plant virus and of these
we now have the genetic capabilities add
some sequences so on the outside surface
of a plant virus we can add new protein
information and what we’re going to add
is snippets of information that’s found
on the real pathogen just tiny little
pieces to make do that so basically
here’s what we’re doing we’ve now added
the new sequences on it so when this
thing assembles we have both on your
left-hand side you’re gonna see the
virus that does not have the costume on
the right-hand side you see the costume
my immune system is gonna see this
costume it’s gonna make antibodies it’s
gonna be ready for the anything that
comes looking like that at all
so when the real one comes by my immune
system is ready to respond and all that
done is taken that little plant virus
and put a costume on it and made it
become an actor so that’s how it’s gonna
work
okay so what I see is a way to globally
spread this ability to make them around
the world because I want rapid response
I want low-cost response and I want it
to happen quickly so the plants grow up
can be grown around the world and the
reason why it can be done globally is
that the idea of being able to patent in
the technology for pet fur um I should
say the technology for making that
costume currently is off patent so
anyone in the world can put costumes and
develop costumes to take these viruses
and turn them in to a costumed vaccine
okay pretty neat okay so here’s the
steps I see for a disease outbreak
number one we have an outbreak you have
a disease you just want to take control
of you have a pandemic you have an
epidemic you have something like that
happening what you need to do is go find
the pathogen find a little snippet of
information on its outside surface and
that’s going to be the
that costume you’re gonna put on the
plant virus so you’re gonna decorate the
outside of the plant virus to look like
it but now I’ve just made some in the
lab not nearly enough I want to make
more than five doses
I want to make millions of doses I want
to be able to respond just this one
little five five doses is not enough
okay but if I get a million of those
plants that’s gonna do a lot better but
I’ll show you what a we can do even more
than that so now we have plants we have
the costumed virus what we’re going to
now want to do is actually get the virus
in millions of plants so I’m going to
show you a facility that exists and can
be made all over the world but basically
this facility has 4 million planted just
like these 4 million they can actually
take a full 1 million per week and
basically introduce this costumed virus
which is really going to be a vaccine
and in one week it’s going to get it so
what we have to do is get it in so you
put the virus vector and you put in a
solution you dip these plants down
inside you pull a vacuum all the air
comes out when you release the vacuum
this vector comes in and now we have the
costume virus being in every single cell
of all those plants if you do a million
a week that’s 5 million doses if you
take a month we got 20 million doses if
you have ten facilities around the world
that’s 200 million doses if you have a
hundred that’s 2 billion we’re gonna
stop anything very quickly by this
technology so you can say okay Larry
that sounds fine maybe you can grow all
these plants maybe you think dunk them
all maybe you can make the costume maybe
this can work but what what what do you
how can you do it okay so here’s our
vaccine I’m going to show you what we
actually did do okay I’ve been working
with the people in Botswana for a while
now and some of who have actually come
here and are working here with with me
and basically what we’ve done is we
found a disease for which there is not a
very good inexpensive available vaccine
and the disease is lumpy skin disease
now this is a disease of cattle not
humans but the same thing they have same
kind of immune system that we have this
disease is devastating to all the
smallholder farmers around the world it
is bad okay so what we want what we did
is we came there and we took this plant
virus and we took a snippet of
information from that lumpy skin virus
and we put it on the outside of our so
we costumed our plant virus that again
can’t cause the disease and we made it
look like the lumpy skin disease virus
and then what we did what we had to do
we inoculated the guys and some of them
not all of them and we let the vaccine
affect them that their immune system
respond and then what we did was kind of
the nasty side of things we actually
challenged him with the actual virus so
now imagine they have now seen this
impostor this costumed plant virus that
looks like it has snippets of
information from it now we’re actually
going to challenge it with the real
stuff well to simplify the graph the the
cattle that got the vaccine did not get
the disease and those that got the
disease got it because they did not get
the vaccine
so this costumed plant virus actually
can be a vaccine and it is low it’s
cheap to grow plants ok everyone can do
it I’ve done it
even though my tomatoes are probably
more expensive the ones I grow than the
ones I can buy the market everyone can
grow everyone can make plants plants are
cheap to grow all they need is a little
bit of soil a little bit of Sun
they’re there to make it for us so we
can actually do this fairly
inexpensively and we’re hoping to
continue this on and I see a world in
which we’re going to have a rapid
response to a disease outbreak we’re
going to be able to control diseases
that we’re not doing a very good job of
now and if that next pandemic comes
that’s going to have the flu that can
kill 50 thousand a hundred thousand two
hundred thousand people we’re gonna stop
it before it gets a chance thank you
[Applause]
a sad picture to start out with this is
the hundredth anniversary of the worst
pandemic we’ve ever had the 1918
influenza pandemic which spread
throughout the world and in less than
two years this is how many died this is
actually something that can still happen
again
I read in the Wall Street Journal last
week that they expect another pandemic
like this but it’s going to kill more
because of our global travel and the
urbanization that we have so it can get
worse and just think about the current
flu that we have right now the current
vaccine is only 30% effective and we
can’t do a damn thing about it okay
there’s no flu that we can react seen
who can respond with we just have to
endure it so a lot of people gonna die
because of this that’s because we can’t
respond we don’t have the ability to do
it what we need to do is find a way to
make quick response rapid response and
cheap response to get vaccines out there
let’s leave a few other diseases that
exist out there rabies currently kills
50,000 people every year if we had an
effective low-cost vaccine we could stop
that disease let’s look at a cancer the
human papilloma virus causes cervical
cancer it’s currently the second leading
cause of cancer death of women in the
world it’s caused by a virus that if we
have a vaccine that’s low-cost and
effective and can be rapidly dispersed
we could actually stop this in the
developing countries the cancer death
from this virus cervical cancer is
basically the leading cause of death in
developing countries let’s look at some
other ones that are slowly approaching
from the south dengue dengue currently
affects fifty to a hundred million
people every year of those five hundred
thousand get hemorrhagic fever of those
twenty-two thousand people die
this every year if we had a good
effective and low-cost vaccine we could
stop it then take a look at Zika so Zika
we know that the mothers of the Zika who
have been infected with the Zika virus
may have a lifelong problem and their
child will be developmentally challenged
okay if we had a low-cost
and available vaccine for Zika we could
stop that so your question is how how
can we have low cost effective and
rapidly dispersed vaccines I’m going to
tell you how ok plants I’m not that
plant
this plan okay so this little guy here
take a look at this little guy at this
size can make enough human vaccine for
five people and it can make it quickly
I’m going to show you how in one week
this little pant can be made to make a
vaccine for five people right away so
because of this I’m gonna have to talk a
little bit about technology sorry
so let’s go let’s talk about plants and
plants viruses plants have viruses just
like we do the one thing that’s kind of
neat about them is even though they look
like ours they have no ability to infect
us at all you eat them every day
I was a certified organic farmer for a
long time i lot of plant viruses but
here’s what’s interesting if you were to
take a plant virus and inject it into me
my immune system is gonna see it and say
ah that’s a virus and it’s gonna make
antibodies against it it’s gonna get the
best immunity against that damn little
thing that can’t hurt you okay
so that’s a neat thing to know so what
I’m saying is let’s take that innocent
plant virus that can’t cause disease
let’s put a costume on it to make it
look like a human virus to basically
decorate the outside so it is an actor
playing the role of the actual disease
agent then if I already checked that in
me and now it’s in a costume it’s just
an actor in the costume now if I inject
that into me it’s going to respond and
it’s going to boom my immune systems
gonna see it see that the actor and
build up good antibodies then when the
real one comes looking like that my
immune system knows what to do it’s had
to practice pretty cool huh
okay so let’s go a little bit deeper on
this so how do you make this decoration
happen how would you get this costume on
the outside of it I’m showing you two
subunits of a plant virus and of these
we now have the genetic capabilities add
some sequences so on the outside surface
of a plant virus we can add new protein
information and what we’re going to add
is snippets of information that’s found
on the real pathogen just tiny little
pieces to make do that so basically
here’s what we’re doing we’ve now added
the new sequences on it so when this
thing assembles we have both on your
left-hand side you’re gonna see the
virus that does not have the costume on
the right-hand side you see the costume
my immune system is gonna see this
costume it’s gonna make antibodies it’s
gonna be ready for the anything that
comes looking like that at all
so when the real one comes by my immune
system is ready to respond and all that
done is taken that little plant virus
and put a costume on it and made it
become an actor so that’s how it’s gonna
work
okay so what I see is a way to globally
spread this ability to make them around
the world because I want rapid response
I want low-cost response and I want it
to happen quickly so the plants grow up
can be grown around the world and the
reason why it can be done globally is
that the idea of being able to patent in
the technology for pet fur um I should
say the technology for making that
costume currently is off patent so
anyone in the world can put costumes and
develop costumes to take these viruses
and turn them in to a costumed vaccine
okay pretty neat okay so here’s the
steps I see for a disease outbreak
number one we have an outbreak you have
a disease you just want to take control
of you have a pandemic you have an
epidemic you have something like that
happening what you need to do is go find
the pathogen find a little snippet of
information on its outside surface and
that’s going to be the
that costume you’re gonna put on the
plant virus so you’re gonna decorate the
outside of the plant virus to look like
it but now I’ve just made some in the
lab not nearly enough I want to make
more than five doses
I want to make millions of doses I want
to be able to respond just this one
little five five doses is not enough
okay but if I get a million of those
plants that’s gonna do a lot better but
I’ll show you what a we can do even more
than that so now we have plants we have
the costumed virus what we’re going to
now want to do is actually get the virus
in millions of plants so I’m going to
show you a facility that exists and can
be made all over the world but basically
this facility has 4 million planted just
like these 4 million they can actually
take a full 1 million per week and
basically introduce this costumed virus
which is really going to be a vaccine
and in one week it’s going to get it so
what we have to do is get it in so you
put the virus vector and you put in a
solution you dip these plants down
inside you pull a vacuum all the air
comes out when you release the vacuum
this vector comes in and now we have the
costume virus being in every single cell
of all those plants if you do a million
a week that’s 5 million doses if you
take a month we got 20 million doses if
you have ten facilities around the world
that’s 200 million doses if you have a
hundred that’s 2 billion we’re gonna
stop anything very quickly by this
technology so you can say okay Larry
that sounds fine maybe you can grow all
these plants maybe you think dunk them
all maybe you can make the costume maybe
this can work but what what what do you
how can you do it okay so here’s our
vaccine I’m going to show you what we
actually did do okay I’ve been working
with the people in Botswana for a while
now and some of who have actually come
here and are working here with with me
and basically what we’ve done is we
found a disease for which there is not a
very good inexpensive available vaccine
and the disease is lumpy skin disease
now this is a disease of cattle not
humans but the same thing they have same
kind of immune system that we have this
disease is devastating to all the
smallholder farmers around the world it
is bad okay so what we want what we did
is we came there and we took this plant
virus and we took a snippet of
information from that lumpy skin virus
and we put it on the outside of our so
we costumed our plant virus that again
can’t cause the disease and we made it
look like the lumpy skin disease virus
and then what we did what we had to do
we inoculated the guys and some of them
not all of them and we let the vaccine
affect them that their immune system
respond and then what we did was kind of
the nasty side of things we actually
challenged him with the actual virus so
now imagine they have now seen this
impostor this costumed plant virus that
looks like it has snippets of
information from it now we’re actually
going to challenge it with the real
stuff well to simplify the graph the the
cattle that got the vaccine did not get
the disease and those that got the
disease got it because they did not get
the vaccine
so this costumed plant virus actually
can be a vaccine and it is low it’s
cheap to grow plants ok everyone can do
it I’ve done it
even though my tomatoes are probably
more expensive the ones I grow than the
ones I can buy the market everyone can
grow everyone can make plants plants are
cheap to grow all they need is a little
bit of soil a little bit of Sun
they’re there to make it for us so we
can actually do this fairly
inexpensively and we’re hoping to
continue this on and I see a world in
which we’re going to have a rapid
response to a disease outbreak we’re
going to be able to control diseases
that we’re not doing a very good job of
now and if that next pandemic comes
that’s going to have the flu that can
kill 50 thousand a hundred thousand two
hundred thousand people we’re gonna stop
it before it gets a chance thank you
[Applause]
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