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news.Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has introduced a new method to produce artemisinin, indicated for treatment of malaria, in a heterologous plant system, such as tobacco.
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According to the researchers, low-cost artemisinin-based drugs are lacking because of the high cost of obtaining the natural or chemically synthesized drug.
Owing to tobacco’s high biomass and rapid growth, this method is believed to enable a cheap production of large quantities of the drug, paving the way for the development of a sustainable plant-based platform for the commercial production of an anti-malarial drug.
The technique was developed by Professor Alexander Vainstein from the Robert H Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the Hebrew University.
The study was published in the Nature Biotechnology journal.