This report has been causing a stir earlier this week. The good in the evil tobacco? So reports are saying. Okay before we all get too excited…the tobacco plants used are genetically engineered.

To make the vaccine, researchers took a sample of a patient’s tumors, which in this trial were made up of B cells (white blood cells that help the body battle disease and infection). They then extracted the gene from the cells that coded for the antigen they needed (to help the immune system recognize the tumors as threats). The key, researchers say, was to make enough of the protein quickly to prompt an immune response.

In this case, the scientists achieved this by inserting the gene into a plant microbe known a tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). Plants are infected with TMV simply by scratching their leaves and depositing the virus into the tears. Researchers discovered that the virus spreads throughout tobacco plants within a week, in the process cranking out a surfeit of the coveted proteins. The scientists ground the leaves and separated out the antigen, which they then injected into volunteers.

Initial humans trial are safe, according to the PNAS report:

In the first human trial of its kind, a vaccine grown in genetically engineered tobacco plants has proved to be safe, paving the way to one day use it to help combat a potentially fatal form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that the experimental vaccine triggered the immune systems of 11 of 16 volunteers (with so-called follicular B-cell lymphoma) to attack their tumors without any apparent dangerous side effects.

Well…this might just work. If biotech can do its job right? I don’t see this as something impossible. But yeah it is too early to tell if this will really work successfully. We’ll see.

It just sucks when I cannot get online without going out of the house. But that’s exactly what happened to me in the last 3 days.

Suddenly, my crappy PC is the most beautiful work station on the face of the earth! Ha ha ha.

Anyways, I just wanna list those important stuff that I missed about cancer while having some offline times:

Kidney Cancer Surgery Often Determined By Surgeons’ Practice Style, Not Medical Factors, Study Shows

Outlook Improves For Patients With Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Over Past Decade

Toad Venom, A cure for Cancer

Study: More Women Can Cut Cancer Relapse Risk

That’s all for now folks. Just keep coming back here.

‘Hope you all are having a great week!