Categories: · Health/Science · Business USA: · North Carolina |
Source:Raleigh News & Observer,2002-12-12
Author:CATHERINE CLABBY |
Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA will pay N.C. State University $17.6 million to map the genome of the tobacco plant, placing the campus at the leading edge of new terrain in tobacco research. . .
Jeff Dangl, a UNC-Chapel Hill plant biologist active in a national effort to set research priorities in the field, said mapping the full genetics of tobacco is not a pressing need for basic scientists. That's because genomes of plants related to tobacco are already being decoded. "Tobacco didn't even come up on the hit list," he said.
Some academics shun funding from tobacco companies, which now admit they make an addictive and dangerous product. In past years, the industry used research they financed to counter evidence that smoking is dangerous.
But NCSU has a long history of working with the companies and helping tobacco growers. For years, R.J. Reynolds Co. was the largest private financer of tobacco-related research at NCSU, but in recent years, Philip Morris has taken that role, said Johnny Wynne, director of agricultural research service at the university.
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