An enzyme that has been found in a bacterium that eats nicotine could completely eradicate the desire for smoking and help people quit.

The enzyme, which has been recreated in lab settings, is a good candidate for a new drug that could be targeted at smokers who are having trouble quitting. It was discovered by scientists at the Scripps Research Institute according to a Business Standard report.

While the research is in its early phases, the study indicates that the enzyme is the right one to target, and it could provide an alternative to anti-smoking aids, which tend to fail 80 to 90 percent of the time — an astonishing figure that shows just how difficult it is to quit smoking.

By using this enzyme therapy, scientists could have this bacteria-derived nicotine assassin search it out and intercept it before it gets to the brain, keeping the person from experiencing any pleasure from that smoking episode,

Researchers have struggled for decades to create the enzyme in the lab even though scientists have known about it, but they finally found a potential enzyme in nature that could work, known as NicA2 which comes from the bacteria pseudomonaus putida. This bacterium was originally found in the soil in tobacco fields, and was found to consume nicotine to produce enough carbon and nitrogen for it to survive.

Scientists described it like Pac-man, the old video game character, going around the body and munching on nicotine.

And the results could get better the higher the dosage, with more of the enzyme potentially reducing the half-life of nicotine even further. This could be done with just a few chemical modifications, researchers theorize.