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The BBC is reporting that...
Scientists have figured out how to brew morphine using the same kit used to make beer at home.
They have genetically modified yeast to perform the complicated chemistry needed to convert sugar to morphine.
Further...
If you brew beer at home, then you are relying on microscopic yeast that turns sugars into alcohol. But by borrowing DNA from plants, scientists have been genetically engineering yeasts that can perform each of the steps needed to convert sugar into morphine. One stage of the process - the production of an intermediary chemical called reticuline - had been a stumbling block.
That has been solved by a team at the University of California, Berkeley, and the scientists say it should now be possible to put all the steps together and "brew" morphine.
Dr John Dueber, a bioengineer at the university, said: "What you really want to do from a fermentation perspective is to be able to feed the yeast glucose, which is a cheap sugar source, and have the yeast do all the chemical steps required downstream to make your target therapeutic drug.
"With our study, all the steps have been described, and it's now a matter of linking them together and scaling up the process. It's not a trivial challenge, but it's doable."
Abstract from Nature.
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Wednesday May 27 2015, @03:00AM
That would entirely depend on whether morphine has the same efect when ingested vs injected. If some part of the digestion process broke the molecule up prior to it being able to enter the bloodstream, it would indeed have to be purified as I doubt that injecting a solution along with whatever else by-products were there would be that healthy (even on this subjective scale) for a person.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 27 2015, @03:36AM
its pretty well-known that morphine has a really low bioavailability, up to 80% of it gets wasted in first-pass metabolism, destroyed by the liver before it even makes it into the bloodstream. it really is a waste to take morphine or heroin orally, but insufflation and rectal administration have very high bioavailabilities, so at worst you just need it pure enough to stuff up your nose, but injection is highly preferable, and some people will inject regardless of how purified it is, just so long as they know it won't kill them.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday May 27 2015, @08:16AM
It has a much reduced effect when ingested, but if you can have a nearly endless supply from a vat in your basement that you can keep going with little more than table sugar, who cares if you need 10 times as much? The chemistry to convert from morphine to heroine isn't too hard. I doubt that at least rudimentary concentration of the product would be that hard.