Cancer vaccine from tobacco plants
Plants as drug factory: the first time researchers have genetically modified plants tailor-made vaccines against cancer. The treatment should be to bring the immune system, to fight the tumor. Initial tests on patients were promising.
U.S. researchers have created a plant-based vaccine, the immune system of cancer patients anfeuern, the malignant cells to find and destroy them. The researchers hope to the future with this approach patients with B-cell lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, vaccinate them. Through its results report Alison McCormick of the Touro University in Vallejo and their colleagues in the trade magazine “PNAS”.
The cancer of the lymphatic system arises when a single cell of the immune system starts to multiply uncontrollably to. The resulting Nachkömmlinge, as the original cell, the same antibodies on the surface - a cell for this unique protein. The scientists isolated in tumor patients is naturally existing antibodies to the cancer cells, identified the individual gene sequence and schleusten these manipulated on a tobacco mosaic virus into tobacco plants. The plants produced in a few days for treatment sufficient quantity of vaccine.
The immune system reacts to the proteins
The researchers tested Levy funds to the 16 patients whose disease was diagnosed just started. None of the patients had side effects and feels more than 70 percent of the treated patients had a reaction of the immune system shown, says the study. It was the first attempt with a vegetable cancer vaccine on humans.
“The basic idea is the body’s immune system to fight cancer basis,” said Ronald Levy one of the authors of the study. He was optimistic about the effect of the vaccine concerns: “We know that a angekurbeltes immune system attack and destroy cancer.” Whether this means, however, was strong enough to destroy tumors, was still not sure, it noted in the study published on Monday, Stanford University.
Neue Technologie mit vielen Vorteilen New technology with many advantages
Previous attempts to create a vaccine in animal cell cultures to produce brought only moderate success. The production of vaccines in plants, however, has immense advantages. As the antibodies are different individually, patients also need the individual vaccines. This, however, in animal cell cultures to produce each lasts a few months, always carries the risk of infections and is also very expensive.
The irony, especially tobacco plants for the development of cancer vaccines, scientists are well aware. Harmful chemicals, which also are present in cigarettes, but are not included in the vaccines. This technology is convenient, fast and safe. In addition, there are indications that the immune system to vaccines derived from plants more than respond to vaccines from animals. Now the researchers in other studies the effectiveness of treatment in a larger group of patients to test.
A second report talks about :
A team that includes two University of Louisville researchers who helped develop Merck’s human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil is attempting to develop a low-cost HPV vaccine using tobacco plants, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. A. Bennett Jenson and Shin-je Ghim, who helped develop Gardasil, are working with colleagues on a vaccine that protects against at least 13 HPV strains known to cause cervical cancer. The experimental vaccine would cost about $3 for three doses, compared with about $360 for three doses of Gardasil, the Courier-Journal reports
Palmer said that “poverty, lack of screening and spotty access to health care lead to late diagnoses and early death” from cervical cancer and other diseases in India and other developing countries. Merck spokesperson Kristen Eskin said that the company is developing new vaccines that would be available at “dramatically lower prices” in developing countries.
