Recombinant Protein Production in Plants: Challenges and Solutions

In a recent presentation at the 2010 International Association for Plant Biotechnology meeting, Dr. Richard Flavell (Ceres, Malibu, CA, USA) motivated the plant community to act quickly and with purpose to move a multitude of traits into crop plants to improve their productivity. Current progress toward understanding of plants is too slow and will not achieve our communal goal of doubling agricultural productivity by 2050. Major breakthroughs are necessary! Thus, high-throughput methods that couple gene identification and phenotype observations are required to put potential products into the hands of plant breeders to make varieties with good agronomic characteristics that will be approved by the regulatory agencies. These first improved crops must be on the market in the next 10 years, according to Flavell, in order to begin to meet our doubled productivity goals in 30 years. Because it takes approximately 10 years to produce a characterized variety from an identified gene and move it through product development and regulatory approval, we must begin now. Presumably, by employing the techniques in the following �chapters, we can do that.