Professor Julian Ma and Chris Atkinson inspect the plants promising low-cost drugs to prevent the spread of HIV

Scientists are hoping to halt the spread of HIV - with tobacco!

Researchers at East Malling Research are helping to grow genetically-modified tobacco plants which give off a potentially life-saving drug through their roots.

It is the first small experimental set up of its kind undertaken in Europe.

The EMR team, led by Dr Chris Atkinson, and Professor Julian Ma, of St George's, University of London, are looking at ways to use the plants to produce large quantities of a drug known to block HIV infection.

After a year of trials, Professor Ma hopes effective HIV drugs will be produced in sufficient quantities to help millions of people in the next five years.

In the latest experiments tobacco plants have been transformed by Prof Ma's team at St. George's University of London to produce a protein called cyanovirin-N, which prevents HIV from binding to human cells.

Dr Atkinson, deputy chief executive at EMR, said: "This is a groundbreaking and globally significant piece of research with huge potential.

"Tobacco is an ideal non-food crop for this research, thanks to the speed it grows and matures and our deep knowledge of its physiology and transformability, which has been the focus of scientific attention for more than 20 years."

Professor Ma and EMR's work is a three-year investigation funded by the National Institutes of Health, the US national medical research funding agency.