Tobacco may save lives. Smoking is still extremely hazardous to your health. But scientists are using tobacco plants to grow antibodies that fight the Ebola virus.
God designed our bodies to produce proteins called antibodies. These fight disease. Yet many people’s bodies are unable to defeat Ebola. For them, the disease is deadly. But God equips scientists for an instrumental role in curing disease. Some of the researchers believe adding extra Ebola-fighting antibodies to infected patients’ blood might help.
So where can scientists get more of these antibodies? Scientists are “tricking” tobacco plants into producing them.
That process begins with mice. Researchers inject mice with a vaccine that has Ebola virus proteins in it. The mice’s immune systems react. They create Ebola antibodies.
Scientists choose the best antibodies. They swap out some mouse genes for human genes so that the antibodies will work on humans. The next step is to grow large amounts of these antibodies. Tobacco plants grow very quickly. They make ideal hosts. But in order to fool the tobacco plant into growing the antibodies, the antibodies must be fused to a tobacco virus. Then the tobacco plants are infected with the genetically engineered virus.
The virus rapidly reproduces inside the plant. Each time it replicates, it makes a copy of the antibody.
In a few weeks, the tobacco leaves are harvested. They are full of Ebola-fighting antibodies.
When two missionary doctors contracted Ebola while serving in Africa, they received an experimental serum called ZMapp. It contained Ebola antibodies. The serum was a combination of the best antibodies created by two companies, Mapp Biopharmaceutical and Defyrus.
Both missionaries survived. A third dose was given to a priest who did not. Still, the results seem promising. Mapp intends to ramp up production on the serum to help restore health to those infected with Ebola.
