Larry Grill, PhD

Professor Grill, who joined KGI in August 2013, is the Dean of Research at KGI. In addition to teaching courses at KGI, he also teaches undergraduates at the Keck Science Department of The Claremont Colleges. 

His lab’s research at KGI is focused on low-cost vaccines for developing countries. The primary collaborator for this effort is the Botswana Vaccine Institute in Gaborone, Botswana. The focus of these efforts has been to address animal diseases that are devastating to smallholder farmers in Africa. With the disastrous COVID-19 outbreak, the research is now targeting the development of low-cost COVID-19 vaccines for the African countries.

Dr. Grill was one of two founders who started Large Scale Biology Corporation (LSBC) in 1987, which became a publicly-held company in 2000. The biotechnology company made therapeutic drugs, pharmaceuticals, and vaccines using a unique plant viral gene expression technology. In the development of these drugs, Dr. Grill developed innovative bioprocessing technology to produce and purify the molecules expressed in plants. They had successful animal and human clinical trials and were able to produce patient-specific vaccines as a therapeutic treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer patients.

Dr. Grill received his PhD from the University of California, Riverside in 1979. He has published over 25 scientific papers and is an inventor on more than 30 issued US and world patents.

1. Grill LK, Palmer KE, Pogue GP. “Use of plant viruses for production of plant-derived vaccines”. Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 2005;24(4):309-323
2. Grill LK. “Production of Pharmaceutical Proteins Using Viral Vectors”. In: Christou P, Klee H, editors. Handbook of Plant Biotechnology, Vol. 2. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.; 2004. p. 781-789.
3. Grill LK, Lindbo J, Pogue GP, Turpen TH. “Viral vector expression of foreign proteins in plants”. In: Hood EE, Howard JA, editors. Plants as Factories for Protein Production. Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands; 2002. p. 3-16.
4. McCormick AA, Kumagai MH, Hanley K, Turpen TH, Hakim I, Grill LK, Tuse D, Levy S, Levy R. “Rapid production of specific vaccines for lymphoma by expression of the tumor-derived single-chain Fv epitopes in tobacco plants”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 1999;96(2):703-708.
5. Mohagheghpour N, Waleh N, Garger SJ, Dousman L, Grill LK, Tusé D. “Synthetic melanin suppresses production of proinflammatory cytokines”. Cellular Immunology 2000;199(1):25-36.
6. DellaCioppa G, Grill LK. “Production of novel compounds in higher plants by transfection with RNA viral vectors”. IN: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 792 Engineering Plants for Commercial Products and Applications Ed. G.B. Collins and R.J. Shepherd 1996;792:57-61
7. Kumagai MH, Donson J, DellaCioppa G, Harvey D, Hanley K, Grill LK. “Cytoplasmic Inhibition of Carotenoid Biosynthesis with Virus-Derived Rna”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 1995;92(5):1679-1683.
8. Turpen TH, Reinl SJ, Charoenvit Y, Hoffman SL, Fallarme V, Grill LK. “Malarial Epitopes Expressed on the Surface of Recombinant Tobacco Mosaic-Virus”. Bio-Technology 1995;13(1):53-57.
9. Kumagai MH, Sverlow GG, DellaCioppa G, Grill LK. “Conversion of Starch to Ethanol in A Recombinant Saccharomyces-Cerevisiae Strain Expressing Rice Alpha-Amylase from A Novel Pichia-Pastoris Alcohol Oxidase Promoter”. Bio-Technology 1993;11(5):606-610.
10.  Kumagai MH, Turpen TH, Weinzettl N, DellaCioppa G, Turpen AM, Donson J, Hilf ME, Grantham GL, Dawson WO, Chow TP, et al. “Rapid, High-Level Expression of Biologically-Active Alpha-Trichosanthin in Transfected Plants by An Rna Viral Vector”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 1993;90(2):427-430