Aspects of plant biotechnology in combating COVID-19 infection

Rani, A.; Azmi, W.

The novel COVID-19 disease pandemic is still at its height caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing thousand of death every week. It has extremely high infectivity, a short doubling time and a high risk of nosocomial infection. COVID-19 is a sudden disaster which has not been previously identified in humans and resulted in a public crisis. However, prevention and management are the best options. Several efforts are made by the researchers to develop vaccines, therapeutic and antiviral drugs to curb the spread of COVID-19 disease. Plant biotechnology is used for the development of test kit reagents, vaccines, immunomodulatory proteins, monoclonal antibodies and antiviral drugs. The rapid production of biologicals on an industrial scale could be facilitated by plant molecular farming (PMF). In the present scenario of the COVID-19 pandemic, PMF has the potential to fulfill emergency demands. Therefore, this is the most attractive approach in terms of cost, scalability, safety, easy delivery and mucosal immunity induction.