Tobacco Plant Useful for Cancer Cure
Posted on July 23, 2008 in Current Affairs by Danteshwari
Personalized vaccine made of tobacco plants, which normally cause cancer, can be used to help people suffering from lymphoma in challenging the disease according to US researchers.
The treatment is meant to vaccinate those suffering from cancer against their tumor cells. It makes use of a new approach, which changes tobacco plants that are genetically engineered into vaccine factories that are personalized.
Ron Levy, Stanford University School of Medicine in California claims that a plant was being used to make a protein that could be injected into an individual. His research appears in the proceedings of the journal of National Academy of Sciences.
Levy further states that this method could be a way of treating cancer patients without side-effects. The purpose is to gear up the body’s own immune system to check the growth of cancer.
Levy belonged to a team of scientists of Large Scale Biology Corp., now defunct, which made funds available for the research as well as the Bayer AG’s Bayer Healthcare, Integrated Biomolecule Corp, CBRInternational Corp, The Biologics Consulting Group Inc, and the Holtz Biopharma Consulting.
The team of scientists were researching on a cancer, known as follicular B-cell lymphoma, a kind of non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This cancer attacks the immune system and makes an antibody that cannot be seen in healthy cells.
Total 16 patients suffering from follicular B-cell lymphoma were tested. Out of these 70% were injected with made-to-order vaccine and developed an immune response. There were no side-effects.
Levy felt that these personalized vaccines should be produced cheaply. This study focused only on the immune stimulating and safety abilities of plant-based vaccines. Future studies need to focus on how effective they are in the treatment process.
Source TOI July 23rd, 2008
» Filed Under Current Affairs
August 12th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
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