Researchers are developing a wide range of pharmaceutical drugs with nicotine as their main active ingredient, often taking their cues from studies conducted by the tobacco industry, Wired reported June 20.

Clinical trials are now underway on drugs that use nicotine -- which acts on the acetylcholine receptors in the brain -- to treat wounds, depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, Tourette Syndrome, ADHD, anxiety, and other disorders.

"Nicotine is highly stigmatized -- and for good reason, because the delivery system is so deadly," said Don deBethizy, CEO of biotech firm Targacept and formerly a researcher with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. "But the drug itself and the research generated by studying its effects on the brain both show great promise for helping us improve our physical and mental health."

"Nicotine itself is hugely potent and not specific enough," said Linda Gretton, Targacept's director of communications. "But the research we have allows us to take the best therapeutic qualities of nicotine and develop treatments that target receptors." The drugs being developed have a molecular makeup similar to nicotine but are not addictive or toxic, company officials say.

The development of nicotine patches for smokers trying to quit, as well as studies showing that smokers seemed to be protected from certain diseases, helped spur research into therapeutic use of nicotine. Still, nicotine-based pharmaceuticals face a stigma given the drug's long association with smoking.

But some see the advent of nicotine-based drugs as a potent stop-smoking tool. "There will be great progress when the nicotine sister drugs come to market," said Ed Levin, a researcher at Duke University. "About half the cigarettes in this country are bought by people with psychiatric problems -- high percentages of people with depression and schizophrenia smoke, for example. When we can give people their medicine in a form that doesn't kill them, it will be real progress."