Tobacco Might Be Healthy

Published on April 17, 2009 6:47 AM

The cigarettes quality depends of tobacco which is contained in each cigarette. European scientists in a study said that they have used genetically modified tobacco plants for to grow medicine.
In general growing medicines in specific plants is called molecular farming and may offer a cheaper way of making biotech drugs and vaccines than the traditional cell cultures in manufacturing processes. Agrochemical companies including Bayer (the world's biggest agrochemical company is also the world's seventh biggest seed company) and Syngenta (the world's second largest agrochemical company is also the world's third largest seed company), have been looking at ways to make drugs in plants, but little progress has been made.

Researchers believed that medicines could be grown in fields, since most plants are the most cost effective protein producers. The advantage over clinically produced medicines would be the low cost of mass production and low maintenance costs. In addition the leaves could be eaten which would put the medicine where it is needed and would not need to go to hospital.

The researchers said that they have produced tobacco plants with an anti-inflammatory protein called interleukin-10 (IL-10) that could help patients with Type 1 Diabetes and other auto-immune diseases. The study involved two different versions of IL-1, one from a virus one from mice, and the tobacco plants were able to process both forms. The plants produced the IL-10 cytokine at high enough levels that it might be useable without lengthy extraction and purification processes.

Researchers have been involved in studies concerning molecular farming using several different plants, but they observed that tobacco is the best for their study, because it is easy to transform genetically and an entire plant can be regenerated from a single cell.
The researchers expected to present their drug for approval in the United States and Israel in late 2009.

It would be ironic if a plant that has created many medical problems when used traditionally became the basis of cure for other medical problems. In the United States it would also be a boon to the agricultural community in producing another paying crop from their land.
The next step is to feed the tobacco to mice with autoimmune diseases and see what will happen. If the mice respond well the group would test to determine if repeated small doses would help prevent diabetes in people.