{"id":4102,"date":"2015-05-18T12:07:30","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T17:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=4102"},"modified":"2015-05-18T12:07:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T17:07:30","slug":"beer-home-brewing-kits-which-might-also-produce-morphine-leads-to-calls-for-early-regulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/beer-home-brewing-kits-which-might-also-produce-morphine-leads-to-calls-for-early-regulation\/","title":{"rendered":"Beer Home Brewing kits which might also produce morphine leads to calls for early-regulation<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4103\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/beetpigment_hi_res-300x300.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4103\" class=\"wp-image-4103 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/beetpigment_hi_res-300x300-300x300.jpeg\" alt=\"beetpigment_hi_res-300x300\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/beetpigment_hi_res-300x300.jpeg 300w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/beetpigment_hi_res-300x300-150x150.jpeg 150w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/beetpigment_hi_res-300x300-268x268.jpeg 268w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4103\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yeast cells producing the yellow beet pigment betaxanthin, which researchers used to quickly identify key enzymes in the production of the metabolites in the poppy plant that could lead to morphine, antibiotics and other pharmaceutical agents. (Photo Credit: William DeLoache at UC Berkeley)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Researchers have taken the final steps to turn sugar-fed yeast, already used by homemade beer brewers to convert sugar into alcohol, into a microbial factory for producing morphine and other drugs.<\/p>\n<p>The authors demonstrate how they synthesized a compound of the poppy plant from sugar using a bio-engineered strain of yeast. This research could be used to produce low-cost therapeutically useful drugs.<\/p>\n<p>However, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/press.nature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/files\/2015\/05\/Comment-Opiates-PRESS.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">in a related \u2018News &amp; Views\u2019 comment article<\/a><\/span>, public health and political scientists argue that this development could dramatically increase illicit access to opiates. Morphine could easily be made by growing yeast in a home-brew kit for beer making.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/nchembio.1816\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in <em>Nature Chemical Biology\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>May 18<\/strong><span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_453723367\"><span class=\"aQJ\"><strong>, 2015<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/artsandscience.concordia.ca\/research\/researchchairs\/canadaresearchchairs\/drvincentmartin\/\" target=\"_blank\">Vincent Martin<\/a><\/span>, Department of Biology, Concordia University, Montreal,\u00a0Quebec<\/h4>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\">John Dueber, University \u00a0of California at \u00a0Berkeley, \u00a0San Francisco \u00a0U.S.A.<\/h4>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\">News &amp; Views Contact: Pamela Peralta-Yahya, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia, U.S.A.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have taken the final steps to turn sugar-fed yeast, already used by homemade beer brewers to convert sugar into alcohol, into a microbial factory for producing morphine and other drugs. The authors demonstrate how they synthesized a compound of the poppy plant from sugar using a bio-engineered strain of yeast. This research could be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1842,53,2431,476],"class_list":["post-4102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-drugs","tag-medicine","tag-opiates","tag-public-health"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/beetpigment_hi_res-300x300.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-14a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4104,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions\/4104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}