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In 2012, DARPA’s exiting director, Regina Dugan gave a TED talk touting the accomplishments of the defense agency; among them, hypersonic Mach 20 flying machines, artificial hummingbird drones, and ‘green goo’ tobacco-grown vaccines. She said, ”This green goo may someday matter to you. This green goo is perhaps the vaccine that could save your life. It was made in tobacco plants. Tobacco plants can make millions of doses of vaccine in weeks instead of months and it might just be the first healthy use of tobacco ever [even] if it seems far-fetched that tobacco plants could make people healthy.” [approx.minute 11] https://www.ted.com/talks/regina_dugan_from_mach_20_glider_to_hummingbird_drone#t-803271
DARPA is on the front lines of making COVID-19 vaccines, in part, through its Biological Technologies Office (BTO) and the leadership of Dr. Anne Cheever who “led a team focused on COVID-19 vaccine acceleration… in support of Operation Warp Speed (OWS) and the Department of Defense.” www.darpa.mil/staff/dr-anne-cheever
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Tobacco and its constituent Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV), the first ever virus discovery, makes a fascinating array of now-useful substances in synthetic biology and AI microelectronics. One of these materials, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP, and its analog vinylpyrrolidone, or VP) became the subject of my 2012 post ‘Morgification’ about the discovery and use of PVP and its compelling property of making vein-like branched hollow tubes. PVP, I suspect, gives rise to some of the very weird physical extrusion phenomena in Morgellon’s sufferers. PVP was used post-WWII as a blood volumizer, and today is a cheap food-additive bulking agent like cellulose. Even “cellulose has received much attention as an emerging smart material, named as electro-active paper (EAPap)…” Citations predating 2012 and uses of these materials, plus a brief review of biopolymers is at the Morg post. https://jenniferlake.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/morgification/
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No crop in the history of America has as rich a history as tobacco. The Pilgrims made a commercial pact to provide tobacco in exchange for their passage and supply. In the early 20th century, the uranium tailings leftover from radium production were spread on tobacco fields as ‘radium fertilizer’ to plump up the poundage of this valuable resource, possibly having a mid-century effect on people like Henrietta Lacks, whose cancerous HeLa cells changed the world of biomedical research during the age of radioactive fallout—and enabled the rapid production of polio vaccine, et.al. More directly, today’s version of tobacco, it appears, is all genetically modified and the ‘green goo’ is a fluorescing protein from jellyfish –perhaps the same basic substance combined with nicotinic acid that ‘lights up’ your brain and makes you smarter. Maybe, as James Watson would have it, the cure for stupidity in a vaccine.
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DARPA, of course, is covering the bases: One early top contender on the way, Moderna Inc. of Cambridge MA, maker of the mRNA vaccine advocated by the Gates and trialed on computer technology workers in Seattle, is in “strategic alliances with…DARPA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” –as expected. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MRNA/profile Moderna is the ‘wealthiest’ company in the state of Massachusetts. But in the liberalized wild-west climate of “national” vaccines, the current COVID tobacco contender made by Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP), a subsidiary of British American Tobacco ( B.A.T., or BATS on the London stock exchange), may have its day –expect it!
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Coming up, more DARPA, more BATS, tobacco vaccines, such as those for Ebola and tularemia, and the fascinating Tobacco Mosaic Virus and related science of pyrroles and porphyrins.
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Jennifer Lake's Blog 