Myth: Tobacco Plants Are Only For Smoking: Difference between revisions
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==Using the plant to make vaccines and medicines - Articles, News, Blogs, etc.== | ==Using the plant to make vaccines and medicines - Articles, News, Blogs, etc.== | ||
===2023: [https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2023/05/native-tobacco-plants-reborn-biofactories%E2%80%99-medicines-0 Native tobacco plants reborn as ‘biofactories’ for medicines]=== | |||
*"Professor David Craik and Dr Mark Jackson from UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience have demonstrated native wild tobacco, ''Nicotiana benthamiana'', can potentially produce large quantities of drugs, cheaper and more sustainably than industrial manufacturing methods." | |||
*"The researchers grew the drug T20K, which is currently in phase 1 clinical trials to treat multiple sclerosis (MS), a devastating autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system...We have shown it is possible to scale up production of cyclotides in plants, providing a platform for growing other medications for pain, cancer or obesity,” Professor Craik said." | |||
===2023: [https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/scientists-have-made-cocaine-from-a-tobacco-plant Scientists Have Made Cocaine From a Tobacco Plant]=== | ===2023: [https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/scientists-have-made-cocaine-from-a-tobacco-plant Scientists Have Made Cocaine From a Tobacco Plant]=== | ||
*"Cocaine is perhaps most notoriously known as a dangerous drug. But it’s also used legally as a local anesthetic for surgeries. Scientists in China have now genetically engineered a tobacco plant to produce cocaine in its leaves." | *"Cocaine is perhaps most notoriously known as a dangerous drug. But it’s also used legally as a local anesthetic for surgeries. Scientists in China have now genetically engineered a tobacco plant to produce cocaine in its leaves." | ||
=== | ===2022: [https://archive.is/bI2Mb Genetically modified tobacco plant produces cocaine in its leaves]=== | ||
*" | *"Researchers have reproduced the entire biochemical pathway for how coca plants make cocaine in another plant, which could help people manufacture the drug for scientific study" | ||
*" | *"But using other plants to produce cocaine won’t offer an advantage for illicit producers, says Lichman. Growing and harvesting coca, and purifying cocaine from naturally productive plant tissue, is orders of magnitude more scalable and cheaper than producing it in another plant, he says, but having the biosynthetic pathway mapped out could lead to the production of chemically similar compounds to cocaine that have unique medicinal properties." | ||
===2021: [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/your-next-vaccine-could-be-grown-in-a-tobacco-plant Your next vaccine could be grown in a tobacco plant]=== | ===2021: [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/your-next-vaccine-could-be-grown-in-a-tobacco-plant Your next vaccine could be grown in a tobacco plant]=== | ||
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===2014: [https://time.com/3457472/see-how-ebola-drugs-grow-in-tobacco-leaves/ See How Ebola Drugs Grow In Tobacco Leaves]=== | ===2014: [https://time.com/3457472/see-how-ebola-drugs-grow-in-tobacco-leaves/ See How Ebola Drugs Grow In Tobacco Leaves]=== | ||
*"Why plants? The time it takes to grow a plant is less time than it takes to genetically engineer a mouse or other rodent to produce human antibodies, which is how such products have been made in the past. It’s also less expensive. Plant-based manufacturing represents a promising new way of producing drugs that could cut the time it takes to bring critical medications, such as a flu vaccine during a pandemic, to a large number of people. Researchers have used the technology to develop a vaccine against norovirus, the infection that plagues cruise ships, for example, that is being tested now." | *"Why plants? The time it takes to grow a plant is less time than it takes to genetically engineer a mouse or other rodent to produce human antibodies, which is how such products have been made in the past. It’s also less expensive. Plant-based manufacturing represents a promising new way of producing drugs that could cut the time it takes to bring critical medications, such as a flu vaccine during a pandemic, to a large number of people. Researchers have used the technology to develop a vaccine against norovirus, the infection that plagues cruise ships, for example, that is being tested now." | ||
===2011: [https://www.the-scientist.com/tobacco-plants-make-hiv-antibody-42187 Tobacco Plants Make HIV Antibody]=== | |||
*"Last month, a monoclonal antibody produced in the leaves of tobacco plants entered phase I clinical trials in the United Kingdom. The antibody, known as P2G12, recognizes an HIV surface protein and is expected to help stop the transmission of the virus, although it has never been tested in humans. The phase I trial, underway at the University of Surrey, will test the safety of vaginally applying the antibody to 11 healthy women." | |||
*"This is the first plant-produced antibody to be cleared for clinical trials by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency (the UK equivalent of the US Food and Drug Administration). Producing the antibody using tobacco plants grown in a greenhouse in Germany is 10 to 100 times cheaper than using conventional methods employing bacteria or mammalian cells, Smart Planet reports. “Monoclonal antibodies can be made in plants to the same quality as those made using existing conventional production systems," Professor Julian Ma from St George's University, London and joint co-ordinator of the project, told The Guardian. “That is something many people did not believe could be achieved.” | |||
==Is there opposition to using tobacco plants to make vaccines and medicines? If yes, why?== | ==Is there opposition to using tobacco plants to make vaccines and medicines? If yes, why?== | ||
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===2016: [https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jul/06/us-farmers-turning-tobacco-into-airplane-fuel-biofuels-renewables Meet the US farmers turning their tobacco into airplane fuel]=== | ===2016: [https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jul/06/us-farmers-turning-tobacco-into-airplane-fuel-biofuels-renewables Meet the US farmers turning their tobacco into airplane fuel]=== | ||
*"Since 2009, the US biofuel company Tyton BioEnergy Systems has partnered with agronomists from Virginia Tech and North Carolina State University and tobacco growers to research the potential for turning tobacco into biomass." | *"Since 2009, the US biofuel company Tyton BioEnergy Systems has partnered with agronomists from Virginia Tech and North Carolina State University and tobacco growers to research the potential for turning tobacco into biomass." | ||
===2014: [https://www.kqed.org/quest/68329/tobacco-gets-a-makeover-as-new-source-for-biofuel Tobacco Gets a Makeover as New Source for Biofuel]=== | |||
*"The most common source for biofuel in the U.S. is corn, which is fermented and turned into an alcohol, called ethanol, that is added to gasoline and used to power automobiles. To create biofuel from tobacco, researchers have added genes from algae and cyanobacteria that can process sunlight more efficiently than corn does and convert the sunlight into hydrocarbons via photosynthesis. Hydrocarbons in the engineered tobacco are a form of bio-crude oil, an antecedent to fuel. This bio-crude can be stored in the leaves and directly removed and processed to create biofuel, which requires fewer steps than making ethanol, the researchers say." | |||
==Multiple Uses== | ==Multiple Uses== | ||
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===2010: Patent Application: [https://patents.google.com/patent/US20110287681A1/en Textiles and Process for Making Textiles and Dyes from Tobacco Plants]=== | ===2010: Patent Application: [https://patents.google.com/patent/US20110287681A1/en Textiles and Process for Making Textiles and Dyes from Tobacco Plants]=== | ||
*"A textile and a dye manufactured from fibers that are derived from tobacco plants and a process for making the textile and dye from the tobacco plants. In a preferred embodiment, the tobacco is organically grown and the entire tobacco plant, including stem and leaves, is utilized to produce the tobacco plant fiber used for making a textile and a natural dye utilized to color the textile or other textiles..." | *"A textile and a dye manufactured from fibers that are derived from tobacco plants and a process for making the textile and dye from the tobacco plants. In a preferred embodiment, the tobacco is organically grown and the entire tobacco plant, including stem and leaves, is utilized to produce the tobacco plant fiber used for making a textile and a natural dye utilized to color the textile or other textiles..." | ||
===1996: Patent Application: [https://patents.google.com/patent/CN1140215A/en Method for making multipurpose pulp from waste tobacco stalks, stems and leaves]=== | |||
*"A method for producing multipurpose paper pulp with waste tobacco stem, stalk and leaf comprises five technological steps of preparing waste tobacco raw material, quick separation of fibrous substance from soluble matter, chemically and mechanically modifying the fibrous substance to make high-strength raw pulp to be bleached, comprehensive regulation and bleaching, and extrusion forming of concentrated pulp." | |||
=Suggested Studies and Articles to include on this page= | =Suggested Studies and Articles to include on this page= | ||