| | By Nick Farrell in Rome @ Friday, March 20, 2009 7:54 AM
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| | Italian quacks have worked out that Tobacco can be turned into a medicine factory which could be used to treat diabetes and arthritis.
 Apparently the leaves produce biological chemicals that could one day be used to treat autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
The Italians grew tobacco plants containing genes for interleukin-10. This is a molecule that could be used to treat a number of conditions.
Tobacco was able to generate enough of the chemical so that it did not have to be extracted or purified.
According to MC Biotechnology the next step will be to feed sick mice with the leaves to see if they get better.
The idea is to use the plants in combination with other biologically active chemicals to combat insulin-dependent, or Type 1, diabetes and arthritis.
Professor Mario Pezzoti, from the University of Verona, said tobacco was an attractive system for the production of therapeutic proteins because they offer the possibility of large scale production at low cost. X
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