Cures On the Cob

摘要

The scraggly cornstalks sprout-ing from pots in Andy Hiatt's laboratory don't look particularly unusual. But woven into their DNA is a tiny strip of mankind: a human gene that codes for an antibody to a sexually transmitted disease-genital herpes-that afflicts some 60 million Americans. When the corn plants mature and produce kernels, Hiatt's company, Epicyte Pharmaceutical of San Diego, hopes to turn them into a topical gel for herpes. And that's just for starters. Epicyte is one of a host of biotech companies that have seized on the information in the map of the human genome-a map that was officially declared complete last month-to create all manner of plant-based phar-maceuticals. Researchers have launched more than 300 trials of genetically engineered crops to produce everything from fruit-based hepatitis vaccines to AIDS drugs grown in tobacco leaves. They call this biopharming.