Top Story, Pharma

Scientists have created certain strains of yeast that can produce opioids

Certain opioids could be created using yeast instead of poppies. This raises concerns with the DEA and FBI, but so far it looks like it will be a while before this is even a real option in the lab for mass production.

Scientists at Stanford have now created strains of yeast that can produce opioids. Drugs that previously could only be developed from the opium poppy could essentially be created quite easily, which is why pharmaceutical companies, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are keeping a close eye.

While developing painkillers via bioengineering could make thinks more reliable and less expensive, there are some major concerns when it comes to drug trafficking and the alarming number of heroin users.

According to The New York Times, scientists and law officials agree that it would be a long time before these methods could be used to make heroin. The strain developed at Stanford would need to be 100,000 times as efficient in order to match the yield of poppies, as it was explained in the journal Science.

The technology could advance within the next two or three years, according to the scientists, but for now, Christina D. Smolke, the leader of the Stanford bioengineering team, told The Times it would take 4,400 gallons of yeast to produce the amount of hydrocodone in a single Vicodin tablet. She said people looking for opioids would get a higher concentration from buying poppy seeds at the grocery store.

Smolke and her team inserted 23 genes, bits of DNA from plants, bacteria and even rats, into yeast and coaxed it to produce enzymes that converted sugar in steps into thebaine (which can be converted to oxycodone) and hydrocodone.

It was “the most complicated chemical synthesis ever engineered in yeast,” she told The Times.

The rapid progress with these developments does give many people some concerns, but it could be worse. Kenneth A. Oye, a professor of engineering and political science at M.I.T. told The Times he was glad that they hadn’t created morphine because that can more easily be refined into heroin. In the journal Nature, he recently made note of the fact that he doesn’t believe drug regulators are prepared for what could come out of the increase of opioid bioengineering.

Although concerns about home-brewed opioids are justified, Smolke said it’s a very complicated process – it’s not like using yeast to brew your own beer. More importantly, she pointed out that millions of cancer victims, accident victims and others in pain around the world had no access to pain relief.

She also told the times that with their work, they could potentially tweak the lab’s yeast to create new chemicals that might reduce the risk of addiction or be better for specific treatments. That couldn’t be done the same way when using poppies.

Photo: Flickr user Chris Campbell

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