Japanese University uses silkworm to make candidate protein for COVID-19 vaccine

On the 26th, the insect genomics research team led by Professor Hirosaki and others from Kyushu University, Japan, announced that they had successfully used silkworms to make coronavirus vaccine candidate proteins. In the future, we will conduct rat experiments and cooperate with pharmaceutical companies to promote clinical trials.

According to the Kyodo News reported on the 27th, the research team is committed to using infectious disease vaccines and pharmaceuticals using high-quality silkworm proteins. Kyushu University began researching silkworms about 100 years ago and currently breeds about 450 species of silkworms. It took 7 years for Nissan and others to screen dozens of silkworms that could be used in medicine. In view of the expansion of the epidemic, the team at the bottom of the day cooperated with Kyushu University's innovative company KAICO to strive to develop a new coronavirus vaccine.

According to reports, the team compiled the published information of the new coronavirus gene into "baculovirus" that can be infected by insects and humans, and was injected into the silkworm's body with a syringe to generate "antigen", and then extracted protein from the silkworm's body fluid , Planned to be used as vaccine raw materials.

 It is reported that the cultivation of silkworm does not require large-scale facilities, and because the feed is only mulberry leaves, low cost can be maintained. However, although medicines made from silkworms have been released to livestock before, they have yet to be used cautiously in clinical trials and other subjects because they have never been used by humans.

If the vaccine development is successful, it is planned to mass-produce the silkworm-derived protein required by the vaccine from KAICO.