Metabolic engineers turn yeast cells into drug factories (IMAGE)

Stanford University School of Engineering

Metabolic engineers turn yeast cells into drug factories

Caption

Certain plants in the nightshade and coca families produce compounds called tropane alkaloids that can interact with the human nervous system to induce medicinal effects. Stanford scientists have genetically programmed the cellular machinery of yeast to create microscopic chemical factories to produce the tropane alkaloid drugs hyoscyamine and scopolamine, much as ordinary yeast are used to brew beer.

Credit

Prashanth Srinivasan and Farrin Abbott

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