Tobacco is used for combating cancer

In composition of Owensboro Medical Health System (OMHS) complex was created a new laboratory “The Mitchell Memorial Cancer Center”. This center was created for investigating in sphere of preparation of medicines from plants, as tobacco for example.

It is one of the principal causes of death in developed countries, and researches in this domain in such centers are of international importance.

The University of Louisville and the James Graham Brown Cancer Center are partnering with OMHS to seek new, profitable ways to reveal new vaccines and conduct cancer research.

Members at the open house for the newly-finished laboratory included UofL President James Ramsey; Director of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, Donald Miller, and OMHS President Jeff Barber.

James Ramsey said:” As a citizen university, the University of Louisville is always pleased to enter into partnerships with others in the commonwealth that benefit citizens both locally and statewide.”

Donald Miller noted that “Today is a great milestone in this partnership, that we hope will jumpstart a bright future for plant-made pharmaceuticals and their vast potential benefit to cancer research and treatment.”

Program director and plant biotechnologist for the Mitchell Memorial Cancer Center, Keith Davis, and his colleague Kenneth Palmer are collaborating with the Brown Cancer Center’s Bennett “Ben” Jenson and Shin-je Ghim. Jenson and Ghim are the researchers behind the cervical cancer vaccine that was launched last year. Keith Davis and Kenneth Palmer are now working on a second-generation vaccine that will be grown, as it’s hard to believe, in tobacco plants.

As it was presented by researches, the process of preparation of vaccines for cancer’ treatment relies in inserting genes into a virus that grows in the plants or directly into the tobacco genome. The leaves of the plants are then harvested, processed and purified to derive a key vaccine ingredient.

Tobacco was chose as primarily ingredient because tobacco-based process is more cost effective than many other methods of vaccine development.

According to Davis, “the center initially will employ three researchers with the goal of attracting up to 10 scientists.”