Categories

Recently European researchers announced they had produced a certain type of tobacco plant which contains a "potent anti-inflammatory protein" called interleukin-10 (IL-10). The purpose of this plant is to help insulin-dependent type 1 diabetes patients, in addition to those with autoimmune diseases. The agrochemical companies of Bayer and Syngenta have been researching ways to make complex protein drugs in plants for awhile, but up until now have been pretty much unsuccessful.  

This is just one aspect of the latest development in the emerging field of "molecular farming", with the idea of producing pharmaceuticals instead of foods. Growing and harvesting genetically modified crops are being used as biological factories, producing drugs that are too difficult or too expensive to produce on a normal basis. During the normal growth of a plant which has been spliced into its genetic genome apparatus with genes from other sources, the modified plants synthesize useful compounds which are then extracted from the crop.

Yet bad press and negativity regarding the perceptions of biotechnology as compared to molecular farming are being made with comparisons and parallels, according to the London Free Press, Aug. 1999.  The April 2000 edition of the Guardian is quoted as saying that molecular farming is seeing the production of vaccines, antibodies, low-calorie sweeteners, enzymes, and mammalian blood constituents. Not a new thing, plants have been used as a primary source for medicinal products for hundreds of years. With an increased demand and the impossibility of purifying compounds from their natural source, animal cell culture, or transgenic bacteria---mankind needs to find alternative methods to produce these important compounds.  

About twenty years ago, the process of human proteins grown in plants was actually developed in plant systems for "simple" proteins with antibody medicines and vaccines produced in cell cultures inside stainless steel fermentaters. The insulin that is considered very much an indispensable compound is actually a simple molecule with tobacco a favorite for many as it is so easy to grow--"tobacco is a fantastic plant because it is easy to transform genetically and you can easily regenerate an entire plant from a single cell," said Mario Pezzotti of the University of Verona, a leader of a tobacco study that was published in the journal BMC Biotechnology.

Even though molecular farming has not produced any commercial crops, soon the University of Verona will be testing with small doses of the new diabetes plant to see if it can prevent diabetes in people, given alongside the compound glutamic acid decarboxyylase (GAD65), another tobacco producing plant. And Sweden's company Diamyd is presently testing GAD65 vaccine against diabetes in clinical trials. Meanwhile during the fourth quarter of 2009, Israel's Protalix Bio Therapeutics is planning on submitting their drugs to the U.S. for regulatory approval, while also conducting advanced clinical tests on an enzyme treatment for Gaucher disease.