By Wes Porter ——Bio and Archives--August 24, 2019
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Tobacco use is “the single most preventable cause of death in the world,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO). But could the noxious plant be used to create helpful health products?
It can and has. Tobacco plants are engineered for pharmaceuticals. The plant is relatively easy to genetically manipulate. Or at least a cousin of Nicotiana tabacum has found favour among scientists as a model organism for performing plant research and creating biopharmaceuticals. Not that the common, familiar tobacco plants once upon a time did not attract similar attention.
However, Nicotiana benthamiana from northern Australia has proved to be a common plant used for pharming. It contains nicotine and other alkaloids and found use by people of Australia as a stimulant until N. tabacum introduced. It is particularly amenable to genetic engineering, the key to producing drugs from plants.
In the early 1990s, Canadian plant scientist Dr. J. Christopher Hall at the University of Guelph in Ontario recognized the manufacturing and regulatory advantages of using transgenic tobacco plants to produce antibody drugs. His university lab developed a tobacco plant-based biopharmaceutical platform, subsequently patented.
In 2008, Dr Hall co-founded PlantForm Corporation and his biopharmaceutical platform was licensed to it. PlantForm Corporation is located at 120 Research Lane, Guelph, with corporate offices at 1920 Yonge Street, Toronto. It is a Canada Top 10 Lifesciences winner. According to the company’s website, “PlantForm’s mission is to provide low-cost biosimilar antibody drugs to help people fight cancer and other critical illnesses.”
The advantages of biopharming are many. Costs are lower and fast, unlimited scale-ups can be achieved. Production is rapid with high yields. Yet with all of these, safety is enhanced with a low risk of contamination
Ironical then, that studies and genetic engineering of Nicotiana tabacum, the most widely grown non-food plant in the world and one of the most easily eliminator health hazards, should contribute to the cure of many of the planet’s ills.
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Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.