Using Tobacco To Fight Cancer: Scientists Engineer Tobacco-Made Antibodies Targeting Cancer Cells

When virologist Hilary Koprowski, M.D., reported last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences how he and colleagues used tobacco plants to produce cancer-fighting monoclonal antibodies that recognize and hunt down breast and colorectal cancer cells, the work represented another step toward a goal he has been pursuing for the last decade.

While therapeutic uses for such antibodies continue to grow at a rapid rate, production has failed to keep pace. Dr. Koprowski, professor of cancer biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, contends that “plants are safer, less expensive and easier to use” than currently used methods in the laboratory and with animals. For mass production purposes, he says, “plants make more sense.”

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