According to Stanford University School of Medicine, genetically modified tobacco plants can grow antibodies needed for treatment of a common cancer. Doctors can obtain the antibodies and transfer them into a vaccine which could treat B-Cell lymphoma, a type of cancer which occurs in about 16,000 people annually.
Oncologists at Stanford believe this way to be a treatment with no side effects, forcing the body’s own immune system to combat the disease.
Tobacco Plant
Image Courtesy of tobaccotactics.blogspot.com
Growing the vaccine is also possible in animal cells. Yet this vaccine must be personalized, since each person’s antibody is unique. Personalizing vaccines animal cells are time-consuming and very costly. In plants, it is much faster, and only a few plants are needed to produce enough vaccine per patient. Doctors believe that plant grown vaccines might even prompt a stronger response than animal grown ones.
The vaccine has been tested on mice and many human patients, with mixed results. Further study is needed to assert the effectiveness of this treatment, and Stanford doctors hope to test it soon on a larger group of lymphoma patients.
For the full article visit Stanford School of Medecine
