[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/6076\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EEngineered plants could manufacture cancer, HIV drugs\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt could mean cheaper cancer drugs, treatments for HIV, and enable researchers to make completely new drugs for novel medical applications.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMany of the most important drugs in modern medicine are derived from nature: aspirin from the bark of the willow tree, pain-relief drug morphine from the opium poppy, and powerful antimalarial drug artemisinin from the sweet wormwood plant.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers are amending the genetic makeup of plants so that they can produce other types of drugs, such as antibodies \u2013 molecules used by our immune systems to neutralise diseases.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAntibodies come in a great variety of types in our bodies, each of which will have a different ability to target and kill bacteria or viruses. The gene sequences of certain antibodies \u2013 known to target specific, dangerous bacteria or viruses \u2013 can then be inserted into the genome of a plant, which can produce that antibody in large quantities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018With plants you can get to the same early stage of clinical development with a much lower financial investment,\u2019 said Professor Julian Ma, Director of the Institute for Infection and Immunity at St George\u2019s, University of London.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018What you need to do is to build a greenhouse \u2013 a fairly good greenhouse admittedly \u2013 probably for a tenth or even a hundredth of the cost of a typical antibody manufacturing facility,\u2019 said Prof. Ma, who is the principal investigator of the FUTURE-PHARMA project funded by the European Research Council (ERC).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018And that means \u2026 you can take risks, you can take 10 times or 100 times more risks on a new product, because you can afford to do that.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProf. Ma and his collaborator, Professor Rainer Fischer from the Fraunhofer IME in Aachen, Germany, have used plants to produce antibodies they hope can help protect against HIV and rabies. The FUTURE-PHARMA project follows on from the EU-funded PHARMA-PLANTA project in which they received approval for the first human trial in the EU using plant-made antibodies to target HIV.\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022tw-text-center tw-text-blue tw-font-bold tw-text-2xl lg:tw-w-1\/2 tw-border-2 tw-border-blue tw-p-12 tw-my-8 lg:tw-m-12 lg:tw--ml-16 tw-float-left\u0022\u003E\n \u003Cspan class=\u0022tw-text-5xl tw-rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n \u003Cp class=\u0022tw-font-serif tw-italic\u0022\u003E\u2018You can take risks, you can take 10 times or 100 times more risks on a new product, because you can afford to do that (with plants).\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cfooter\u003E\n \u003Ccite class=\u0022tw-not-italic tw-font-normal tw-text-sm tw-text-black\u0022\u003EProfessor Julian Ma, Director of the Institute for Infection and Immunity at St George\u2019s, University of London\u003C\/cite\u003E\n \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProf. Ma also believes that the technology could be adapted to produce antibodies against cancer and tuberculosis.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEbola\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe case of ZMapp \u2013 an experimental antibody against Ebola \u2013 exemplifies the use of plants in antibody production. ZMapp is a cocktail of several antibodies that researchers have produced in tobacco plants using a strategy similar to that employed by Prof. Ma\u2019s lab.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018If ZMapp is a successful product and using plants is a good way of making it \u2013 the best way of making it in fact \u2013 then I\u2019m sure this will be a springboard for the whole field,\u2019 he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers are not only engineering plants for antibody production, but also for the synthesis of natural chemicals with medicinal properties.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOften these compounds are made by the plants to defend against herbivores and pests and only coincidentally have medicinal properties in humans. But typically plants need only to make minute amounts of the defence compounds to gain protection, so harvesting these chemicals is cumbersome. For example, to obtain one injection\u2019s worth of the anticancer drug Taxol from its natural plant source, you would need six Pacific yew trees, each around 100 years old.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs part of the ERC-funded LIGHTDRIVENP450s project, Professor Birger Lindberg M\u00f8ller at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, is developing a way to amplify the production of valuable medicinal compounds from plants.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe idea is to alter the DNA of plant cells in a way that targets the enzymes producing these valuable compounds to the chloroplast, the sunlight-driven powerhouse of the plant cell. In this way energy production and synthesis of medicinal compounds is merged at the same place.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProf. M\u00f8ller and his team have been particularly successful in developing ways to insert certain enzymes known as P450s directly into the photosynthetic energy-producing parts of the cell in order to make plants produce diterpenoids \u2013 a class of compounds which includes the sweetener stevia, the anticancer compound taxol and forskolin, a promising anticancer compound currently used to treat glaucoma and heart failure.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018P450s have been taken out of the chloroplast during evolution to enable the plant to prioritise energy consumption between growth, making fruits or seeds and only making defence compounds when challenged by herbivores and pests,\u2019 said Prof. M\u00f8ller. \u2018Now we are putting them back and it works quite well \u2013 amazingly well actually!\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe challenges that still remain are significant, but Prof. M\u00f8ller is optimistic that the technology will reach real-world application soon. \u2018I would say in around five years, then I think you would have the first product from our lab with these complex molecules,\u2019 he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-izxdifyjsti7gy31e9dbotb-53ewmpfn6kbxszl6z48\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-izXdiFYjSti7gY31E9DBoTb-53EwmpFN6KbxsZl6Z48\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]