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Rabies Antibodies From Tobacco Plants
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."
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.
For once, tobacco is saving lives!
does it run linux?
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.
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!"Will we send the tobacco industries' finest to try to hook dogs and small animals on these cigarretes? Imagine - "Puff puff the Raccoon"?
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.
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...
Tobbacco's so hard to work into a salad. Maybe they should make some anti-rabies Tomacco instead?
Does this mean tobacco chewers won't just spit, now they'll foam at the mouth, too?
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."
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.