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Rabies Antibodies From Tobacco Plants

Posted by timothy on from the smokin' dept.

Makarand writes "The tobaccco plant has been genetically engineered to produce rabies antibodies. After the DNA coding for the human antibody against rabies was inserted into the plant, rabies antibodies were found in the plant extract. These antibodies were effective in binding to and neutralising the rabies virus in animal tests with no adverse or allergic reactions."

47 comments

  1. No surprise by crow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's not terribly surprising. I heard years ago that tobacco is one of the easiest plants to genetically alter. That's god news for the growers as their traditional customers become more scarce.

    1. Re:No surprise by Muhammar · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, recently they also produced transgenetic tobbaco with firefly genes which glows in the dark when sprayed with a chemical called "luciferin".

      http://www.gla.ac.uk/ibls/US/L1/l12002/plantwat/ bi oplant.htm

      We will have more of these nasty tobbaco hybrids soon - pack-hunting around, biting their victims and even infecting them with rabbies.

      --
      I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
    2. Re:No surprise by jericho4.0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Tobacco has long been used for genetic fiddling because of the huge amount of work that went into it via the ciggarette companies, and our body of knowlrdge about the tobacco mosaic virus. I don't think there's anything about tobacco that makes it easir to work with, per se.

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
  2. Hooray! by Feztaa · · Score: 3, Funny

    For once, tobacco is saving lives!

    1. Re:Hooray! by Tackhead · · Score: 1
      > For once, tobacco is saving lives!

      Yeah, but since it's a genetically-modified (GM) product, the EU "pure food" nuts will just ban the rabies-curing tobacco as "unsafe".

      (The lung-cancer-causing variety, by comparison, must be good for ya, 'cuz it's "natural" :)

    2. Re:Hooray! by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 1

      For once, tobacco is saving lives!

      Ironically, so is the rabies virus.

      Rabies is a commonly used vector in gene therapy research. Since it targets brain tissue, it is a good way to introduce a therapeutic gene into mammalian neurons to treat diseases like ALS and spinal muscular atrophy.

  3. But. by TheRoss · · Score: 1

    can you smoke it?

    1. Re:But. by henrygb · · Score: 1
      can you smoke it?

      It depends on who "you" are: they have only tested it on other animals so far.

  4. *cough, cough* by berb · · Score: 0

    mang
    *cough, cough*
    *cough, cough*
    great, got the rabies, gotta smoke more Camels..
    *cough, cough*
    *cough, cough*
    .
    .
    *cough, cough*
    great, got the emphysema

    --
    In teh event of an actual emergency this space might provide useful information.
  5. Re:But. - more to the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    does it run linux?

  6. Unfortunatly by freaksta · · Score: 0

    ... As stated by the scientists.. the only was that this treatment will be effective is by smoking the leaves of the plant.. unfortunatly, RJ Reynolds holds a patent for "treatments involving smoking tobacco"

    --


    Hrrm... I usually just sign my name.
  7. Get rabbies... by MBCook · · Score: 4, Funny
    Get addicted!

    Cigarettes aren't selling well? Just wait untill people get rabies! Then give them our vaccine, and they'll get addicted to it! It's the perfect plan.

    He he he.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    1. Re:Get rabbies... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ROFL, thanks man, I haven't had a good laugh like that in a while.

      "just wait 'til people get rabies" - priceless...

  8. Adverse events by Boglin · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "with no adverse or allergic reactions."
    A good friend of mine did some consulting work on a computer system for a certain multi-national pharmaceutical manufacturer. His tales of what went on there are some of the most depressingly humorous stories I have ever heard (with all the sides (patients, politicians, managers, the FDA, animal rights activists, doctors, researchers) commiting their fair share of the stupidity). What brought this to mind is when he told me about the FDA's requirement that they track all the adverse events caused by the medication, such as headache or dizzyness. The funny part is that Death is not considered an adverse reaction. Death is a natural occurance, and patients who die while testing your medication aren't worth keeping track of.
  9. Interesting... by fok · · Score: 1

    Bot... how long before smokable vitamins?

    --
    \m/
    1. Re:Interesting... by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, they could add vitamin THC into tobacco. That would sell rather well I would think.

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    2. Re:Interesting... by Stonan · · Score: 1

      They'd have to make them ALOT smoother. I could never keep tobacco smoke in my lungs as long as I do with pot. Not even close!

      --
      The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
    3. Re:Interesting... by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but think of the 'nicotine' patches ;-)

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    4. Re:Interesting... by Stonan · · Score: 1

      I can see myself looking like Krusty in that Simpsons episode...

      'Uhhh, check my ass. I think there's space for one more...'

      --
      The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
  10. Think of the new anti-rabies programs... by therealmoose · · Score: 2, Funny

    Will we send the tobacco industries' finest to try to hook dogs and small animals on these cigarretes? Imagine - "Puff puff the Raccoon"?

  11. Joe Camel vs Cujo by AtariAmarok · · Score: 1

    I guess this means if a rabid dog bites you, then smoke 'em if you got 'em (and get lots more to smoke if you got none)

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  12. Zork the Rabid Dog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    This reminds me of an old college radio promo I remember hearing:

    "Somewhere in our town tonight roams Zork, the rabid dawg. We'll give $1000 to whoever can grab... the RIGHT.... rabid...dawg!"

    This is so obscure and old that it is not even found on Google.

  13. And corn, and other edibles by Katravax · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sure, everyone jokes about smoking and tobacco on this story, but they're using corn and other edible crops as well. I don't give a damn how careful they are with the crops, they will not be able to remove all chance that the altered plants will propagate outside the "controlled" crop areas.

    What kind of effects will that have on food crops? What does it do to a human body to eat too much of the given drugs being grown in plants? The companies growing it don't even know. They whine because it's so much cheaper to do this way than with the traditional lab methods, and that it would cost too much to stop doing it. I don't care how much it costs them -- I don't want the chance of this stuff jumping into the food supply. I'd rather get sick of whatever they're trying to cure.

    I know there will be replies calling me a biology luddite, but I'm not. I don't want this stuff in our food. It's too much like pissing near the well.

    1. Re:And corn, and other edibles by avalys · · Score: 4, Funny

      >I'd rather get sick of whatever they're trying to cure.

      We'll miss you - rabies is fatal.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank.
    2. Re:And corn, and other edibles by Katravax · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I knew someone would miss the point. Tobacco is not a food plant. But let's say it was. Which is worse -- the occasional person dying from rabies, or entire groups of people eating rabies vaccine? They're growing cow antibiotics in corn. Do you want to eat that? What will it do to your body?

    3. Re:And corn, and other edibles by e_pluribus_funk · · Score: 1

      I'm taking antibiotics right now for bronchitis. Wouldn't you know it, I'm starting to grow a third eye on my left palm.

    4. Re:And corn, and other edibles by SiMac · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not just fatal, it is the only disease on Earth that is 100% fatal. The Ebola virus (specifically, Ebola Zaire) is the second most lethal, after it.

    5. Re:And corn, and other edibles by Ace905 · · Score: 1

      Rabies is the only disease on earth that is 100% fatal? I don't understand, who has ever lived a full life with untreated lung, or brain cancer?

      Do you mean Virus?

      --

      Ace
    6. Re:And corn, and other edibles by PhilHibbs · · Score: 1

      Post-exposure vaccination is effective, so I presume you mean 100% fatal if untreated? I didn't know that.

    7. Re:And corn, and other edibles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      who has ever lived a full life with untreated lung, or brain cancer?

      everyone, given that 'full life' is subjective. ;)

    8. Re:And corn, and other edibles by SiMac · · Score: 1

      Pathogen, not just virus. Sorry.

    9. Re:And corn, and other edibles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have been cross-breading plants for thousands of years. Most of the grains we eat today are carefully bread. Laura Wheat - which is a popular wheat because it is much more hardy - has been bread with several other types of grain, to have beards like durum - helps prevent inspects and rodents from eating all the grain. Different plants are bread together in the interest of creating something better. It is slow, costly and unreliable. You can get plants with all sorts of negative traits you don't want. But, we do it and pretty much all the food we eat has been engineered this way. It is "oldschool genetic engineering", if you will - sit back and hope, method.

      Another thing we do to plants - even some the wonderful "safe, organic" plants: desiccation and irradiation. The most common is dumping chemicals on plants to dry them out quickly for harvest. The result is seeds that are so badly damaged they won't germinate. But they're still used as food. We irradiate food to kill off disease. Chemicals and radiation are also used to control reproduction - either to prevent grains from going to seed or making sure that the seeds of the plant (grown from the original "modified" seed) cannot germinate. This forces farmers to always buy the grain from the distributor, instead of being able to reuse seed that they've grown.

      As scary as desiccation and irradiation are, they help preserve food and eliminate diseases. There are also all the incredibly toxic chemicals we spray onto most foods in order to keep disease and pests off them. Which may be good - it lets us produce food in volumes many times larger than what we could do without. It also helps keep prices at the low levels most people seem interested in paying. (Many organic farmers go out of business - too few people want to pay the higher prices caused by the reduced output)

      Personally - I would be much happier having no chemicals used on the food I eat. If a genetically engineered plant, that has been tested to be safe, can live with no chemicals and produce as well as our current crops, I'd be very happy.

      I think we should stop looking at Genetically Modified/Engineered food as a demon. We've done genetic engineering for years, we've just got new techniques. Instead of spending our efforts on blocking and preventing it, I'd far rather develop tests and controls to ensure that when we DO create GM plants, we have good controls in place to test the safety and prevent cross-contamination.

      Genetic engineering is a tool like any other - if used improperly, it is dangerous, if used correctly, it is very beneficial. And, like anything else, if you prevent people from doing it in your country - it will simply move into more remote, less controlled places. I'd rather encourage its development safely than chase it to some place where it can develop dangerously.

    10. Re:And corn, and other edibles by sjames · · Score: 1

      Which is worse -- the occasional person dying from rabies, or entire groups of people eating rabies vaccine? They're growing cow antibiotics in corn. Do you want to eat that? What will it do to your body?

      What's needed is a safety mechanism. I have seen research that rendered yeast (IIRC) dependant on an amino acid that does not occur naturally (yet is easily synthesized). A good measure would be to make the same modification to the plant's genetics so that won't grow at all outside of it's controlled cultivation environment.

      Another useful modification would be a sterile plant that is reproduced only from cuttings. As a side benefit, this would also control genetic drift that could render it useless for it's intended production.

    11. Re:And corn, and other edibles by sjames · · Score: 1

      Actually, organic foods are slowly becoming mainstream. Organic farmers in the past have gone out of business for two primary reasons. One is that they simply stopped using pesticides and herbicides but made no other changes to their practice (a sure recipe for disaster). The other is that organic foods have been a sort of fringe thing.

      When appropriate techniques are used such as mixed crops and avoiding strains which require 'modern' techniques to thrive due to inferior insect resistance or ability to absorb nutriants, production is much better.

      Organic food is starting to become mainstream now. Unlike 5 years ago, you can now find it in mainstream grocery stores. The larger market for organic foods will help organic farmers considerably.

      While I don't view GM foods as a demon, I do view it with additional caution. It is a more powerful tool, and as such, can cause bigger harm more quickly than traditional breeding techniques. In traditional breeding, the desired change comes about over a number of plant generations, with undesired emergant traits selected against in each generation. In GM techniques, that all gets squashed into a single generation of change. This naturally calls for an order of magnitude (at least) more care in selection of the modified generation.

      Then there's the degree of change. Unlike traditional techniques where traits must be selected from existing plants similar enough to cross breed, GM techniques can introduce traits that have never even existed in the plant kingdom before. That capability SHOULD suggest considerable additional caution with the modified generation since it can produce entirely unexpected results (imagine the surprise of someone allergic to shellfish when they have a near fatal reaction to grapes for instance).

      Given the history of the companies involved in much of this (not all, but many), there is ample reason to doubt that that necessary extra care will be taken (though you can bet we'll be TOLD that it is taken, and there might even be fake documentation to back it up, they have a history of falsifying safety studies).

      Imagine if, for example, some genius in the '50 had managed to get tomatos to produce DDT in their leaves (after all, it's only in the leaves, and we all know DDT is safe to use anywhere). Though he wasn't able to make sure the trait wouldn't cross into other varieties, he was able to make sure it would only be expressed in the leaves, so it was 'perfectly OK' if it spread into every variety of cultivated tomato.

      While some are opposed to GM in principle out of fear, many others are opposed simply because they do not believe that the corperations involved can ever be trusted to use appropriate caution when there's a dollar to be made.They fear the day some agribusiness decides that the 90 billion they'll have to pay out in lawsuits will be less than the 100 billion they will make, and that in any event, the lawsuits probably won't happen before ten years pass and the stockholders are grumbling now (side note, consider if executives are 9 years from retirement).

  14. So this is how they save themselves... by Stonan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let's face it, the tobacco industry is being slowly hunted down and exterminated. What better way to survive than to alter the product but keep the raw material.

    The industry keeps it's plantations and probably won't have to change the harvesting methods. Processing might need some modification. Major changes for the factories/machines that produce the actual finished product. If it's possible to grow a tobacco plant with multiple genetic changes that don't interfere with each other's development, it could be the 2nd golden era for the tobacco industry.

    --
    The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
    1. Re:So this is how they save themselves... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh ? I assume you making a joke... the 'industry' doesn't own most of the plantations, and the revenue generated from the actual crop is mimimal. Their profits are from the final product.

    2. Re:So this is how they save themselves... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Let me change your statement around a little bit.

      Let's face it, the marijuana industry is being hunted down and exterminated. What better way to survive than to alter the use but keep the raw material?

      I'm thinking about the pot-smokers who justify the growth of marijuana because of its medicinal properties, while ignoring the brain damage it causes.

      Tabacco will save you from rabies... but kill you with lung cancer.
      Marijuana makes your pain go away... and your brain cells.

    3. Re:So this is how they save themselves... by Stonan · · Score: 1

      Again: go read a scientific case study instead of the crap and lies put forth by the government. And while you're at it, look at the studies on alcohol.

      The comparison for tobacco and for alcohol vs marijuana has been done numerous times and has always come to the same conclusion: tobacco and alcohol do more damage to the body long and short term.

      As for a final thought: how many years did the government and the industry outright LIE to people about their products effects on the body in order to preserve their interests? Is it not possible they're doing the same thing with other substances?

      If you don't want to take the time to find out the truth, look for a movie called Grass. It was made in 2000 and shows the US war on pot from its very begining.

      --
      The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
  15. Obligatory Simpsons link by ArmorFiend · · Score: 3, Funny

    Tobbacco's so hard to work into a salad. Maybe they should make some anti-rabies Tomacco instead?

  16. So.... by mbstone · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does this mean tobacco chewers won't just spit, now they'll foam at the mouth, too?

  17. It's true! by breon.halling · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've been smoking for years and I've never once had rabies!

    --
    "Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
  18. Smoke? by thomasmd · · Score: 2, Informative
    I hate to state the obvious and spoil all the hilarious comments here (which are undoubtedly meant to ridiculous), but cigarettes from the altered tobacco plants will of course NOT be smoked if you are bitten by a rabid dog. The leaves from the plants will be mushed up and the antibodies will be extracted, yielding a fluid for injection.

    This won't do anything for the cigarette industry, but this (and other work in tobacco) could very well help tobacco farmers. Tobacco is used not only because it is easy to introduce DNA into, but because it grows easily, fast, and has big leaves, allowing for high production of the protein of interest.

  19. finally.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can now stop worring about those insane squirrels outside during my smoke breaks.

  20. If You Ask Me .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These guys are barking up the wrong tree. They can drool over their anti-rabies antibodies all they want, but these antibodies produced in plants are much more useful as far as I'm concerned.