During my PhD thesis (2008-2015), I have explored the possibilities to use tobacco plants as production platform for recombinant proteins with pharmaceutical applications, like human cytokines and antibodies. The PhD project was funded by a pharmaceutical company, and they gave me the freedom to develop my own research lines considering plant biotechnology as well as immunology. This research led to three publications in Plantbiotechnology Journal (the leading journal for plant biotechnology) and several other open access journals, like PLoS One and Frontiers in Plant Science. Furthermore, two patent applications resulted from this research. Towards the end of my PhD thesis, I investigated the possibilities of adapting the N-glycosylation pathway of tobacco. This work was a stepping-stone to re-connect with helminth research within the Laboratory of Nematology. A collaboration was started with Prof. Hokke and Prof. Yazdanbakhsh from Leiden University Medical Center in which I turned tobacco plants into little protein factories for helminth-derived glycoproteins. The pioneering steps towards production of helminth glycoproteins on a large-scale and simultaneously mimic their native helminth N-glycan composition has led to a publication in Scientific Reports in 2017, but more importantly, is accepted with open arms as a new tool for animal parasitology research and has led to several new international collaborations and recent publications in high impact journal (e.g. Plos Neglected Tropical Diseases and FASEB Journal). The availability of a recombinant expression platform that allows the reconstruction of native helminth glycan structures paves the way for a new direction in animal parasitology research. Glycan structures play a crucial role in parasite biology and at the host-parasite interface. Enabling the production of recombinant helminth-secreted glycoproteins with their native glycan structures offers the opportunity to develop efficient 'helminthised' vaccines. It will also allow more detailed investigation on the molecular dialogue in host-parasite interactions, which currently is hindered by the limited availability of native helminth-secreted products. My expression platform therefore allows more fundamental research on immunomodulation by helminth-secreted glycoproteins and the contribution of native glycans. In extension of this research, we are able to develop novel biopharmaceuticals, anti-helminth vaccines and diagnostic tools for helminth infections of humans and livestock. In a proof-of-concept project (NWO-Veni project in 2019, followed up by the Plants4Nemavax project), I was able to demonstrate that a recombinant vaccine against the cattle parasite Ostertagia ostertagi relies on its native glycan composition to confer protection. Where other recombinant expression failed to produce a protective vaccine, my plant-based expression system was able to produce the recombinant vaccine, while at the same time we were able to mimick the native glycan composition. In collaboration with Peter Geldhof at Ghent University we were able to proof that glycans contribute to the protective capacity of this vaccine. This achievement is now paving the way for new collaborations and funded projects for the development of novel anti-parasite vaccines for livestock (e.g. against liver fluke) as well as human parasites (schistosomes and hookworm).