Ricin is a potent lethal cytotoxin derived from castor seeds and combatting its toxicity is a tedious task.Currently no effective antidote has ever been formulated so far and makes therapy difficult.It also places the victims survival purely as a matter of chance.As chemotherapy andd other mehods fail to produce productive results,scientists have started to employ vaccines as a possible tool to tackle the toxin.
US researchers from Army Laboratory in Frederick have found a vaccine containing an inactivated toxin that selectively retains an activity to boost the immune system without inducing lethal toxicity to mount systemic defence response in the body by protein engineering princples and found to be effective on animal models.The US Army has reported that currently trials are underway in 30 human volunteers and plans to conduct clinical trials as well at Fort Detrick.
Vaccines are powerful tools to produce solutions in a timely consistent and biologically safe way.Historical credits to vaccines in global health are something extraordinary with reference to pathogenic diseases and attempts such as this to focus on vaccine vehicles and expanding their horizon to toxins neutralization would most probably yield a fruitful result in future to address the problems of global threat from castor toxin.