Tobacco plants may be used to make certain cancer vaccine for people who suffer from a chronic type of lymphoma, according to one study.
Drug, which will develop the patient’s own immune reaction to fight the tumor cells themselves, made using a new approach that turns genetically engineered tobacco plants into vaccine factories particular. Lymphoma is a type of cancer involving cells of the immune system.
“This is the first time a kind of plant has been used to produce the protein to be injected to humans,” said Dr. Ron Levy of Stanford University School of Medicina in California, whose research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“This will be a way to cure cancer without the impact,” said Levy.
Levy’s team tested the vaccine on 16 patients recently diagnosed with follicular lymphoma B-cell, chronic disease that can not be treated.
According to the study, no patient underwent a striking impact and more than 70% of these patients develop an immune reaction.
Although they are not sure whether the immune response is sufficient to destroy the cancer, the researchers hope the technique could someday lead to treatment at least some types of the deadly disease.
“Every patient’s lymphoma have the target on their tumor cells but each patient’s tumor has a different version of the target,” Levy said in an interview.
Finding the right target requires cloning the genes from tumor patients.
Researchers scratch tobacco leaves wrapped with a virus gene to infect plants, which in turn produces antibody proteins that are also visible in the tumor patients. Leaves were picked a few days later and pounded a green powder. Of the leaf, captured antibody and clarified. Material is then injected back into the patient, said Levy.
“This technology specifically because it is fast and very suitable for certain specific approach because each plant can make (vaccine) different people,” said Levy told AFP.
This is the first cancer vaccine from plants has been tested in humans.
Vaccine derived from plants have a number of advantages. The vaccine can be developed much faster and much cheaper. The vaccine does not contain the risk of infection if the animal cells contaminated.
And the resulting antibody can also cause an immune reaction that is stronger than that developed in animal cells.
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