Researchers at the John Innes Centre are helping to lead a new European Union-funded project that promotes tobacco plants as organic mini factories producing vaccines and new drugs. The laboratory of Professor George Lomonossoff will help deliver the NEWCOTIANA project which combines several new plant breeding techniques to produce medical and cosmetic products in tobacco plants. The 7.2 million Euros Horizon 2020 project aims to develop new varieties of tobacco and its wild relative Nicotiana benthamiana to produce compounds such as antibodies, vaccines and drugs in a sustainable manner. NEWCOTIANA is coordinated by scientists at the Institute for Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMCP) from the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) with participation of 19 industrial and academic partners form 8 European countries and Australia.