Yeast growing in a fermenterSTEPHANIE GALANIE
Step by step, researchers have for years been working to re-engineer the biochemical pathway that poppies use to make opioids, such as morphine, and transplant it into yeast. Finally, they have, according to a study published today (August 13) in Science. Stanford University’s Christina Smolke and her colleagues described an engineered strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that uses 21 enzymes from plants, mammals, bacteria, and yeast to convert a sugar into thebaine, a compound that can be chemically converted into drugs such as codeine and oxycodone.
“The science is first class,” said Ian Graham, a geneticist at the University of York, U.K., who was not involved in the study. “It’s the first time an entire pathway from sugar to morphinans has been stitched together.”
The report ...
