A chewing gum made from an unlikely ingredient — lablab beans — knocked out up to 93% of a cancer-linked virus in laboratory tests on real patient samples, according to a study published in Scientific Reports and led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine.
The gum, developed by a team under Penn Dental's Henry Daniell, contains FRIL, a naturally occurring antiviral protein produced using genetically engineered plants. Researchers tested extracts from the gum against saliva and oral-rinse samples taken from head and neck cancer patients and found HPV levels fell by 93% in saliva and 80% in oral rinses. An enhanced version of the gum, spiked with an antimicrobial peptide called protegrin, nearly eliminated two bacteria — Porphyromonas gingivalis and Fusobacterium nucleatum — that are separately linked to the same cancers, while leaving beneficial mouth bacteria largely untouched.
Why HPV and the mouth
HPV infection is now the leading driver of oropharyngeal cancers — tumors of the tonsils, base of the tongue and throat — a category of disease that has been rising for years even as cervical cancer rates, driven down by vaccination, have fallen. Researchers from the University of Kansas Medical Center and UCLA also contributed to the work, which was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health.
The global increase in oropharyngeal cancer is linked to HPV infection. Our findings support the value of advancing these therapies to clinical trials.
Henry Daniell, University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine
The appeal, researchers say, is partly practical: a cheap, plant-grown gum could in theory be manufactured and distributed far more easily than injectable antivirals, especially in places with limited health infrastructure.
But the caveats are real. This was laboratory testing on isolated samples, not a clinical trial of anyone actually chewing the gum — researchers don't yet know whether the same antiviral effect holds up inside a living mouth, or whether suppressing these microbes will meaningfully reduce cancer risk or outcomes in patients. Daniell's team says the next step is moving the gum into human trials. Until then, it remains a promising lab result, not a treatment.
