In a drug trial that would prove an advance for both HIV prevention and biotech, European scientists are testing the efficacy of an anti-HIV antibody that was cultivated via a genetically modified tobacco plant. The biological product, produced by the EU-funded Pharma Plant, would be used as a vaginal microbicide to prevent sexual transmission of HIV; it is currently being tested in 11 healthy women in Britain. If this Phase 1 study is successful, larger trials will follow, with the hope that the new antibody, called P2G12, can then be combined with others in a gel offering broad protection against HIV/AIDS.
The news is especially exciting, since it s believed that this kind of molecular farming could produce protein drugs more efficiently and cheaply than conventional methods. ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom adds that this research is in a very early stage, so it is impossible to say whether it will work, but it has huge potential. ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross, however, worries that the chemophobic groups who fear biotechnology will find common cause with those who eschew tobacco in any form, and attempt to strangle the nascent fruits of this biotechnology on the vine.