Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 11, 1994 TAG: 9408110081
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG NOTE: ABOVE LENGTH: Medium
- In a sweltering greenhouse, Carole Cramer fingers a fat tobacco leaf that is incubating a vital human blood protein.
Early tests suggest the leafy pariah can actually grow complex medicines, from blood thinners to a possible AIDS drug. And while years of research lie ahead, Cramer predicts that one day, farmers will set aside a little tobacco to help health.
``We're on the cusp,'' said the Virginia Tech plant pathologist. ``There are a lot of hurdles still, but there's a real opportunity here.''
Tobacco is under attack from all sides, as doctors revile its capacity to kill, Congress tries to ban indoor smoking and the Food and Drug Administration considers regulating nicotine as a drug.
But scientists, from the United States to Holland, are discovering a good side to tobacco that could provide cheaper medicines and might help the small tobacco grower survive.
``Tobacco is like the white mouse of the plant world,'' said Bob Erwin, president of BioSource Genetics, a new California company dedicated to pharmaceutical tobacco.
Tobacco contains about 4,000 chemicals. Some are dangerous. Others have commercial use:
DNA Plant Technology Corp. has patented a variety that produces high levels of sclareol, which is used in place of animal musk in deodorants and aftershaves.
North Carolina State University is producing Fraction-1, a protein found in all green vegetables but which tobacco produces in higher concentrations. Scientists could use the gelatin-like substance in cosmetics in as little as two years. They hope later to turn Fraction-1 into a non-allergenic infant formula or perhaps even food for kidney patients, because it is so pure that it may help them avoid dialysis.
More intriguing, tobacco grows foreign genes so easily that it one day could do what scientists now depend on expensive bacteria systems and genetically altered animals to provide: bioengineered medicine.
Cramer took an aggressive tobacco-attacking bacteria and added to it the gene for a vital protein that keeps people from suffering serious blood clots.
She infected pieces of tobacco leaf with the bacteria, sprouted the leaf bits and in a matter of weeks had grown dozens of genetically altered tobacco plants - with human blood protein growing inside their leaves.
She's now extracting that protein, purifying it and testing it to see whether the tobacco has processed it the same way the body would. If it hasn't, the protein might not work. But if it does, doctors could get human blood proteins much more easily and cheaply.
Canadian researchers are also testing an anticoagulant from tobacco.
At N.C. State, scientists are inserting lysozyme, a bacteria-killing enzyme from cows' stomachs, into tobacco in search of another new antibiotic.
Not only does tobacco appear to grow these drugs easily, it grows so large and so fast that scientists can get a good supply quickly, Cramer said.
And while some people question whether medicine grown in tobacco would pose a health threat, one study indicates that's not a problem. Mogen International, in the Netherlands, fed chickens a tobacco-grown molecule and found no ill effects.
This could one day be good news for the small tobacco growers faced with a declining market. They pocket about $1,000 per acre of tobacco, compared with only about $60 an acre for corn or soybeans, so changing crops isn't a good economic choice, said N.C. State's Ray Long.
Pharmaceutical tobacco, however, should retain a high price, he said.
``Will medicines in tobacco ever completely fill the void for the growers? No,'' Cramer said. ``But in the long term, maybe 10 years from now, you may see quite a large acreage of tobacco grown for medicines, enzymes to use in cosmetics, all kinds of things.''
by CNB