Tobacco being tapped to produce human plasma.

Byline: Rachel Melcer

ST. LOUIS _ In a twist on the "Little Shop of Horrors," with its blood-eating plant, a startup company is developing a way for tobacco plants to produce human plasma.

Chlorogen Inc., which recently set up shop in the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise incubator, is commercializing technology that uses the cells in tobacco leaves as a factory for pharmaceutical proteins.

The patented technique could drastically reduce the cost of producing protein-based drugs, which are widely believed to hold the most therapeutic promise, said David Duncan, Chlorogen's president and chief executive.

The method also holds none of the environmental dangers of cross-pollination with other plants, since the chloroplast cells it modifies play no part in reproduction, he said.

And, since tobacco is not eaten, the protein cells cannot get into the food chain_alleviating another common concern about plant-based pharmaceuticals, which are being grown …