A team of biologists and engineers have created the first ?living foundry? capable of producing 2.5 million units of vaccine in just seven days using genetically altered tobacco plants, tended by robots. Molecular farming, as this vaccine-production method is known, introduces the genetic information needed to produce a ?target? protein into plants. Even with the cost of high-capacity automation, the infrastructure costs are 10 times less than those involved in other vaccine-growing methods.
