Efforts are being made to develop an effective treatment for the deadly Ebola virus. In a small area amid a Kentucky industrial park, five greenhouses have genetically-modified tobacco plants. These plants have special antibodies developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.
The designer antibodies are grown in Kentucky from a unit of Reynolds American Inc. Tobacco plant-derived medicines have existed for past many years. But it is now that the treatments have begun to reach marketplace.
Mary Kate Hart, an immunology researcher, was of the view that not only it is quicker, but also less expensive to produce antibodies in plants. It is important to come up with workable solution in the case of Ebola virus as it has taken 1,603 people ill in West Africa and killed 887 in the recent outbreak.
The disease is spreading at fast pace in West Africa. Its spread is threatening populations and economies in Liberia and other neighboring places. Owing to which, anxiety level is increasing and the international health community wants to know the efficacy of Mapp's antibody cocktail given to two US sickened workers. It is said that their condition is better.
Molecular Biologist Erica Ollman Saphire from the Scripps Research Institute shared that the process of creating antibodies in tobacco plants starts with mice. The antibodies are injected with a vaccine carrying Ebola virus. Saphire said that there are many antibodies, but it has to be decided which ones have to be used.
Before the antibodies are tested on mice, researchers have to find the best ones and then they are tested on monkeys. Mapp's experimental drug has three antibodies that work together to neutralize the Ebola virus.
Charles Arntzen, a plant biotechnology expert at Arizona State University, explained the role of tobacco plants. The plants act as host to grow antibodies in large amount. To come up with a natural tobacco virus, genes for needed antibodies are fused and then they are infected with the new artificial virus. Antibodies are also grown inside the plant and finally, they are extracted.