Eco-friendly weight loss: Grow Ozempic-like medication at home

A team of undergraduate researchers has developed an innovative way to produce essential medications more affordably and sustainably. The Phytogene project, led by students from the University of Ottawa, leverages transgenic plants to manufacture peptide-based pharmaceuticals, providing an eco-friendly alternative to conventional drug synthesis.

At the core of Phytogene is a method known as biopharming, where plants serve as biological factories for producing complex molecules. The team uses Nicotiana benthamiana, a species of tobacco, to generate Glucagon-like Peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, a class of drugs that includes the widely known diabetes and weight-loss treatment Ozempic.

Unlike traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing, which relies on chemical synthesis and fermentation in bacterial or mammalian cells, this approach could significantly reduce costs and environmental impact.

“Inspired by the recent Ozempic shortage, we built a proof-of-concept system that allows functional GLP-1 agonists to be expressed in plants,” says Victor Boddy, the team leader. “We envision a future where people can grow their own treatments at home without worrying about cost or availability.”

The Phytogene team recently competed in the iGEM Grand Jamboree in Paris, where they secured a gold medal, placing among the top five teams in the biomanufacturing category. Their achievement highlights the growing importance of plant-based pharmaceutical production in addressing global medication shortages.

“Phytogene offers a sustainable approach to biotechnology by tackling the urgent issue of medication access,” says Teagan Thomas, the project co-leader. “We’re excited to develop this concept into a commercially viable project with support from venture capitalists and scientific advisors.”

The project involves 23 undergraduate students from multiple disciplines, working under the guidance of faculty mentors in biology and biomolecular sciences. While the team has successfully demonstrated the production of GLP-1 receptor agonists in plants, the compounds have yet to be tested on humans. Current efforts focus on refining production methods and conducting bioactivity assays to evaluate their effectiveness.

“Our next step is testing how these compounds affect blood glucose and insulin levels,” Thomas explains. “We are developing bioactivity assays to determine the drug’s impact on human cells.”

Phytogene’s biomanufacturing process follows three core steps: cloning, plant expression, and purification. First, DNA plasmids encoding the target protein are inserted into Agrobacterium tumefaciens, a bacterium that facilitates gene transfer to plants. Once inside the plant, the foreign DNA directs the production of GLP-1 receptor agonists within different cellular compartments. The final step involves purifying the protein using affinity chromatography techniques.

Using advanced tools like SOLIDWORKS, the team has also designed a scalable agroinfiltration vacuum chamber, which could enable large-scale pharmaceutical production in plants. The system integrates finite element analysis (FEA) to optimize the efficiency of the vacuum-based infiltration process, making large-scale implementation more feasible.

Phytogene is designed not only for GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide but also for other peptide-based therapeutics. The team has already begun testing the expression of other medications, including tirzepatide and retatrutide, both of which are used for diabetes and weight management.

“We’re assessing whether our system can be applied to multiple peptide therapeutics,” says Thomas. “If successful, this could pave the way for a broader impact in pharmaceutical production.”

Beyond their own research, the team is committed to making biopharming more accessible to the broader scientific community. They have released an open-source biopharming toolkit through the iGEM Parts Registry, providing genetic tools for rapid screening of protein localization in plants. This initiative aims to encourage other researchers to build on their work and accelerate the development of plant-based drug production.

Future plans include refining purification methods to enhance drug yield, improving agroinfiltration techniques to scale production, and validating bioactivity through extensive testing. The team is also considering stable transgenic plant lines, which could provide a long-term solution for continuous medication production.

“Scaling up is one of the biggest challenges in plant-based pharmaceutical production,” says Boddy. “We’re developing a vacuum infiltration chamber to make the process more efficient, and we’re looking at ways to create stable transgenic lines that don’t require repeated transformation.”

Further validation is required before these plant-derived pharmaceuticals can enter clinical trials. The team is currently running bioactivity tests using mouse models to measure glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. These tests are crucial for ensuring the effectiveness of plant-produced semaglutide compared to commercially synthesized versions.

In the long term, Phytogene’s success could transform pharmaceutical manufacturing, providing a cost-effective and sustainable method for producing life-saving drugs. By reducing reliance on expensive lab-based synthesis and making use of widely available plant species, this method has the potential to increase access to essential medications worldwide.

“This project started as a response to medication shortages, but it has grown into something much larger,” says Thomas. “We believe that plant-based biomanufacturing can revolutionize healthcare, making treatments more accessible to people everywhere.”

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