This flu season has been a particularly bad one. But an innovative method for making vaccines promises an easier and quicker response to pandemics—thanks to good ol' tobacco. Sounds healthy, right? Currently, the majority of the 130 million seasonal flu vaccine doses administered in the US every year are made using live chicken embryos. But the process is costly, time-consuming, and requires a lot of eggs. So Medicago, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, is testing a new idea: Coax tobacco plants into expressing the proteins to make vaccines. Last year Darpa challenged the firm to make 10 million doses in a month. Medicago succeeded, proving it can respond quickly to a new outbreak—much faster than the six months required for egg-based vaccines. This is how the tobacky gets wacky. <script language="JavaScript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <object class="BrightcoveExperience" id="myExperience2147413141001"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"></param><param name="width" value="660"></param><param name="height" value="372"></param><param name="playerID" value="1577029897001"></param><param name="playerKey" value="AQ~~,AAAAAF1BIQQ~,g5cZB_aGkYZC26fBYKv5Nsnal0IamyGL"></param><param name="isVid" value="true"></param><param name="isUI" value="true"></param><param name="dynamicStreaming" value="true"></param><param name="@videoPlayer" value="2147413141001"></param></object>

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1. Cultivate the bacteria [2 weeks] Researchers identify the viral protein that will become the vaccine's target. They then find the genetic sequence that codes for it and insert that DNA into a bacterium, which will then multiply in a fermenter.

2. Grow the plants [5 weeks] Meanwhile, workers plant Nicotiana benthamiana seeds. After a two-week germination phase, the plants grow to about a foot tall in a greenhouse, helped by a combination of high-intensity sodium lights, water, peat moss, and fertilizer.

3. Dip the tobacco [1 minute] Trays of 128 plants at a time are inverted and dipped into dilute solution of the modified bacteria. A vacuum pulls intercellular air bubbles from the plant, wringing it like a sponge; when the vacuum releases, the tobacco soaks up the solution.

4. Nurture the crop [4-8 days] Each day, Medicago's facility can dip up to 9,500 tobacco plants. The temporarily transgenic tobacco then goes into a temperature-controlled chamber under special lights, where the plants produce the flu protein.

5. Process the leaves [1 day] Workers use a food dicer to chop the leaves into 1-cm squares. A large vessel called a digester dissolves the cellulose in the leaves, releasing the protein. Each batch produces enough for about a million doses of vaccine.

6. Produce the vaccine [2 days] Using chromatography and centrifugation, the virus-like particles are collected, concentrated, and: Ta-da! Who wants a shot?