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• Fighting HIV in developing countries – with tobacco  

Professor Julian Ma, of St George's, University of London. "Also, in sub-Saharan Africa, it's very difficult for a woman to insist on condom use".

With no cure or vaccine for HIV yet available, Ma and his collaborator, Professor Rainer Fischer, are co-ordinating a team of researchers across 39 European institutes who are now focused on neutralising the virus before it can cause infection – and this is where a soupy green sludge of pulverised tobacco leaves might provide an answer. . . .

Interestingly, antibodies that neutralise the HIV virus have already been identified and can be made to order. The problem is that creating such highly virus-specific antibodies – monoclonal antibodies – is expensive. The anti-cancer drug ­Herceptin, for instance, uses monoclonal antibodies and its prohibitive cost has made it a controversial drug for prescription even in some developed countries.

Ma, moreover, says that because viruses mutate, any microbicide would ideally be a cocktail of two or three antibodies. This makes the medicine twice or three times more expensive.

Enter the tobacco plant. Plants can grow proteins – which is what antibodies are – and if they're genetically modified, they can grow specific proteins that scientists know will act on the HIV virus (though diseases such as rabies could also be targeted).

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