Tobacco Used To Treat Cancer

Tobacco is often associated with being a culprit behind cancer, but a new therapy actually utilizes the plant to treat it. The treatment involves making a vaccine from a protein produced by the tobacco plant, and then injecting it into a patient to treat lymphoma, the type of cancer the vaccine targets.

Tobacco plants have a specific weakness; the tobacco mosaic virus. This virus is unique only to tobacco plants, and scientists use it to manipulate the plant to produce human antibodies. Cancerous tumor cells contain antibodies not found in healthy cells. Scientists modify the virus to carry one of those antibodies. In roughly a week, the tobacco plant with produce a protein to fight the cancer, and scientists can harvest the leaves of the tobacco plant to make a vaccine to treat the cancer in humans.

Similar therapies have been tried using animals in place of plants, but it could take months before a usable protein was produced, making the therapy impractical. Bacteria are also not ideal for the therapy. Study leader, Dr. Ron Levy of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, stated "The plant system has some advantages. It's pretty cool technology, and it's really ironic that you would make a treatment for cancer out of tobacco."

Unlike smoking a cigarette, the manner in which the tobacco plant is being used poses no health threats. In fact, in a human trial of 16 patients with follicular B-cell lymphoma, 70 percent of the patients injected with the vaccine had a positive immune response, and there were no reported side effects.

The treatment is not commercially available yet, and remains in the testing phase. The next step in the treatment is to run a phase-2 clinical trial, and test the vaccine on more people to continue improving and developing the technology.