Landscape Juice

Plant-produced polio vaccines could help eradicate age old disease

Plants have been used to produce a new vaccine against poliovirus in what is hoped to be a major step towards global eradication of the disease. A team of scientists, including Dr Johanna Marsian working in Professor George Lomonossoff’s Lab at the John Innes Centre, has produced the novel vaccine with a method that uses virus-like particles (VLPs) - non-pathogenic mimics of poliovirus which are grown in plants. Genes that carry information to produce VLPs are infiltrated into the plant tissues. The host plant then reproduces large quantities of them using its own protein expression mechanisms. Professor Lomonossoff, from the... Read more →

Garden Bridge Trust announces closure of the project

Statement from the Garden Bridge Trust. The Garden Bridge Trust, the charity established to build and run the proposed Garden Bridge in central London, today announced that it will be winding up the project. It has informed the Mayor of London, as well as Transport for London (TfL) and the Department for Transport, who have both allocated public funds to the project, of its decision. The Trust has had no choice but to take this decision because of lack of support for the project going forward from the Mayor. On 28 April, Sadiq Khan wrote to Lord Mervyn Davies, Chairman... Read more →