Can tobacco be used to cure cancer?
Baku, February 7 (AZERTAC), In a Toronto laboratory, an experiment on mice is seeking to answer a question that could turn conventional wisdom on its head: Can tobacco cure cancer?
The plant best known for its negative health effects has been genetically engineered to create a drug comparable to Herceptin that could one day be used to treat highly aggressive breast cancers at a lower cost.
That development is part of a plant-based trend in pharmaceuticals. It is based on the belief that proteins can be made faster, cheaper and easier, allowing patients in remote parts of the world to gain access to medicines once unaffordable. And it`s not just tobacco. Plants being tested as biological drugs sound like they belong not in the laboratory but in the vegetable section at the health-food store: carrots for Gaucher`s disease, duckweed - those green flecks on top of ponds - to treat hepatitis C, and safflower to make insulin.
Don Stewart, president and chief executive officer of PlantForm Corp. based in Guelph, Ont., whose company is running animal studies on tobacco, thinks so. The key, he said, is to remove sugars from the protein molecule, which can cause adverse side effects in humans, adding that using plants is a way of thinking “that`s enjoying a resurgence at the moment.”
In this case, the process takes place in Kentucky, where the tobacco is engineered, then cut and pounded with a giant screw, similar to those used in food manufacturing. From there, a pulp resembling crème de menthe is made; out of that extract, the drug is purified. It`s this act of purification that transforms it into a potentially cancer-curing drug.
The developers have a long way to go - animal studies just began Jan. 26. Human studies with as many as 50 people aren`t slated to take place until late 2013, followed by a larger trial of up to 400 subjects in 2014. Still, Mr. Stewart believes the lower projected cost of the drug - $20,000 to $28,000 - will be attractive globally, something he will have to prove against four other competitors vying for that part of the cancer-treatment market.
The drug comes off patent in Europe in 2014 and in North America in 2017.
Typically, government regulators, which license and approve drugs, don`t look at how innovative the process is but merely whether the generic version looks the same under a microscope as the brand-name version. Herceptin is made in a bio-reactor from mammalian cells that have been originally derived from a Chinese hamster, not a plant.
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