Plants create new drugs from old

Biotransformation - using plant cells in culture to create new pharmaceuticals that are safer, more powerful and effective than the old ones they are made from, is opening new horizons in drug design says Professor Tony Bacic of the Cooperative Research Centre for Bioproducts and the University of Melbourne.

"Plants use enzymes to undertake their own chemical reactions," he explains. "By growing their cells in culture in a large fermenter, we can use them to modify existing drugs so they become more effective and be used for other purposes."

The team is working on a number of promising anti-cancer compounds which they have produced by this method and which could not be obtained by other processes.

The CRC for Bioproducts' goal is to produce drugs which are much more specific in their action and which have far fewer side-effects, at a reasonable price.

The big advantage of biotransformation is that it enables you to change specific parts of a complex molecule, in a water-based solution at room temperature - and to make a lot of product. There is no genetic engineering or anything like that - the plant cells do all the work.

The CRC can carry out plant cell biotransformation at anything from small laboratory scale up to semi-industrial scale production in a 10,000 litre reactor.

It offers Australian pharmaceutical and chemical companies an opportunity to compete against the global drug giants by taking advantage of cutting edge chemistry that can produce high volumes at a comparatively low cost.