Scientists have been looking to the world of biotechnology for new solutions to lingering medical conditions. One such solution is a human blood protein now being cultivated in a genetically-modified tobacco plant. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by DuPont.
We’re at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington where they are synthesizing human coagulation factor eight, an ingredient in human blood that helps stop bleeding. Consequently, it’s a much-needed protein for people with hemophilia and other blood-clotting disorders.
Dr. Brian Hooker is a biochemical engineer who’s been working on cultivating the factor eight protein. He does this by putting the factor eight gene into what’s called an agrobacterium – a solution that allows genes to be transfered to plants. The genes carry a kind of blueprint which instructs an organism on how to create the protein.
“We’ll take what’s called a leaf disc from tobacco, and then we’ll take a very dilute solution of the agrobacterium and we cultivate the agrobacterium with the tobacco leaf discs.”
After three or four days in solution, the discs become infused with the factor eight gene. They can then be removed and cultivated.
“We’ll place these in a petri dish containing a nutrient medium and wait for a period of over two to four weeks and we’ll see individual roots start to form on these leaf discs, individual shoots form on these leaf discs, and eventually we can scale that up into a full genetically-modified tobacco plant.”
The final step in obtaining factor eight from the plant is grinding up the tobacco leaves and extracting the juices which contain the protein in solution.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by DuPont, bringing you the miracles of science, with additional support provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.