The desert is a beautiful and colourful place

 

Diane Webster

 

I arrived at LA airport on Saturday May 23rd, got my visa stamped and transferred to a flight to Washington DC for a conference. Today it’s Sunday June 6th and I’m sitting in a beautiful air-conditioned home in the middle of Arizona, USA. The sky is clear and it’s 110°F (43°C) outside. A cool change with highs of 100-102F (38°C) is expected later in the week. What was I thinking!!! On the plus side I went for a walk this morning and saw 9 small squirrels with speed stripes, 10 rabbits (mostly on the golf courses), multiple lizards (with spots), some small birds with red heads and apricot under their wings, some amazingly spiny cactuses, and an array of different coloured flowers including a crown of deep pink flowers on the top of a Saguaro cactus.

 

So what am I doing here? Science of course. I’ve been awarded a UNESCO-L’Oreal Fellowship for Women in the Life Sciences. Each year L’Oreal sponsor fifteen UNESCO Fellowships that are designed to allow women to travel to another laboratory to further their research and help establish their careers. I have chosen to spend approximately 5 months in the United States, based predominantly at Arizona State University where I will be working with a number of world renown groups on plant based vaccines. I’ve chosen these labs because of the breadth of experience they have in producing plant-based vaccines; from optimising vaccine production in plants, to clinical trials and commercialisation.

 

I work with a group of scientist in Australia, based at the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health. My main project is the development of a plant-based vaccine for measles. Despite the existence of a safe and effective vaccine, measles still kills over 750,000 children each year, predominantly in developing countries. These deaths occur because the current vaccine must be kept cold during transport and storage, it must be injected, and it does not work in the presence of maternal antibodies. We have shown that the hemagglutinin protein of measles (MV-H) can be expressed by a range of plant species, and that oral immunisation with tobacco-derived MV-H protein is able to induce an immune response in mice. In an exciting new series of experiments we have also shown that MV-H protein in freeze-dried lettuce is stable at room temperature for at least seven months, and can survive for at least a week at 50°C. Current studies are focused on examining the ability of this freeze-dried MV-H lettuce to induce a response in oral feeding trials.

 

For more information about the L’Oreal-
UNESCO Fellowships visit http://www.forwomeninscience.com. Successful applicants receive $20,000US to support their travel and research in another country. You will also be ‘required’ to travel to Paris for a week in March to participate in a range of activities for L’Oreal such as media interviews, Gala dinners and an award ceremony. The week in Paris is a once in a life-time experience and lots of fun. Application forms for 2005 Fellowships are available at http://portal.unesco.org. Applications need to be submitted to the UNESCO office in your home country (ie NZ or Australia), where two applications are selected and forwarded onto UNESCO headquarters. Applications must reach HQ in Paris by September 15th, 2004. Good luck.

Photographs by Diane Webster