Scientists Genetically Engineer Tobacco Plants to Pump Out a Popular Cancer Drug
1 min read
Summary
Scientists have used tobacco plants to produce cheap, sustainable supplies of a popular cancer drug, Taxol.
They added 17 genes from the yew tree, which synthesises the chemical, to tobacco, which does not make it naturally, and found theplants produced it at similar levels to yew.
While the finding is a breakthrough, the production of Taxol in tobacco would not be scalable as the genes could not be passed on to each generation of seeds.
However, adding the genes to microbes could provide a more efficient way of mass producing the drug.
The research is a step closer to providing a sustainable supply of the vital medication.
