Can vaccine pills made of pollen cure sneezing allergy?

New York: An Indian-origin scientist is developing new vaccine pills from tiny pollen particles, which could treat people suffering from sneezing allergy. Harvinder Gill, a chemical engineer at Texas Tech University, plans to scoop out the pollen’s allergy-causing innards and leave just the non-allergenic outer shell. [caption id=“attachment_541140” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Getty Images[/caption] The idea harnesses the power of pollen’s natural engineering — a tough outer shell made from a polymer that could survive the human body’s stomach acids and digestive processes. The vaccine by Texas Tech University could also be widely used for troops suffering from sneezing allergy and has drawn military funding from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), ‘Live Science’ reported. Oral vaccines skip the pain of a needle injection and don’t need trained medical personnel to administer. However, researchers have struggled to create vaccine pills that can survive long enough inside the body to properly deliver the vaccine. Gill’s funded project will become part of DARPA’s broader efforts to make battlefield medicine both simpler and more effective for troops. Similar DARPA medical projects include developing miniaturised bio-chip versions of human body parts and organs for speedier drug testing, as well as creating swarms of tiny sensors that could diagnose or treat soldiers from inside their bodies, the report said. PTI