Tobacco used in fight against Ebola

Drug makers’ use of tobacco plants as a fast and cheap way to produce novel biotechnology treatments is gaining global attention because of its role in an experimental Ebola therapy, according to a story by Sharon Begley for Reuters.

The treatment, which had been tested only in laboratory animals before being given to two US medical workers in Liberia, apparently comprises proteins called monoclonal antibodies that bind to and inactivate the Ebola virus.

For decades biotech companies have produced such antibodies by growing genetically engineered mouse cells in enormous metal bioreactors. But in the case of the new Ebola treatment ZMapp, developed by Mapp Pharmaceuticals, the antibodies were produced in tobacco plants at Kentucky Bioprocessing, a unit of Reynolds American.

The tobacco-plant-produced monoclonals have been dubbed ‘plantibodies’.

“Tobacco makes for a good vehicle to express the antibodies because it is inexpensive and it can produce a lot,” said Erica Ollmann Saphire, a professor at The Scripps Research Institute and a prominent researcher in viral hemorrhagic fever diseases such as Ebola. “It is grown in a greenhouse and you can manufacture kilograms of the materials. It is much less expensive than cell culture.”

The full story is at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/health-ebola-tobacco-idUSL2N0QC03R20140806.