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Sifelani Tsiko Senior Writer
Zimbabwe has the potential to produce an Ebola drug if it supports and invests more in bio-pharmaceutical research on tobacco plants, a local biotechnology researcher says. Dr Ian Robertson, a Harare-based biotechnology expert, told participants at a one-day workshop on biotechnology awareness that Zimbabwe had the capacity to produce an Ebola drug given the expertise it has in biotechnology and in tobacco growing.
“Major global pharmaceutical companies are using tobacco plants to produce antibodies needed to fight diseases such as Ebola,” he said.
“They are producing a drug called ZMapp which they are using on an experimental basis to treat Ebola.
“We have to research on it and try it. We can do it. We are a major tobacco growing country. We can do something about it.”
Researchers say tobacco plants contain one of the most promising hopes for developing an effective treatment for the Ebola virus which has gripped West African countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, affecting 13 567 people and killing over 5000, according to latest World Health Organisation statistics.
At present, there is no cure for Ebola, although several companies in the US are working on drug candidates to help fight the Ebola virus.
At present health experts give patients only fluids, blood transfusions and antibiotics in the hope their immune systems can fight off Ebola’s onslaught.
Major US pharmaceutical companies are using the tobacco plant production system because they see it as a plant that can produce antibodies rapidly in the event of a public health emergency.
Researchers say to produce therapeutic proteins inside a tobacco plant, genes for the desired antibodies are fused with genes for a natural tobacco virus.
The tobacco plants are then infected with this new artificial virus.
The infection results in the production of antibodies inside the plant which are then ground up and the antibody are extracted.
“I don’t see why we can’t do it,” said Dr Robertson. “We can do it for ourselves to cure what needs to be cured. No one can stop us from doing the research for ourselves. We have the technology and we have the brains.”
Tobacco plants, he said, may hold the key among others to promote biotechnology in the development of drugs and in the improvement of crop yields and plant disease resistance.
Dr Robertson bemoaned the loss of skilled scientists through brain drain.
“Our universities are producing a number of graduates who have studied biotechnology and it’s sad that we are losing them to developed countries,” he said. “In the US, we have a number of Zimbabwean scientists who are doing wonders and are heavily involved in biotechnology research. We have to see how we can utilise their talent here to retain them.”
In the world of health and medicine, researchers say, the word tobacco usually brings to mind cancer, emphysema and heart disease.
But in recent years, they say, the plant’s tarnished reputation is getting a makeover from the development of pharmaceuticals through an effective, swift and cost-cutting technique that has been dubbed “biopharming.”
For example, Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company in North Carolina, produced 10 million flu vaccines in 30 days using tobacco plants in a government funded programme to test the prospect of rapid vaccine production in the hypothetical case of a global health pandemic.
A Canadian bio-pharmaceutical company PlantForm is using tobacco to produce a drug that reduces the growth rate of breast cancer tumours.
The National Biotechnology Authority organized the workshop under theme: “Towards a Biotech Driven Economy” to raise understanding and appreciation of benefits derived from biotechnology applications.
Zimbabwe, though it now has laws to regulate the safe applications of biotechnology, is still to approve genetically modified (GM) technologies.
Tobacco is the country’s second largest foreign currency earner after mining with latest figures indicating the country produced 214 million kg of the golden leaf raking in nearly US$700 million.
Online Reporter