Biochemists Are Turning Genetically Modified Yeast Into Perfume and Opioids
31st December 2014
Yeast. Is there nothing it can’t do? Scoop it up from nature and it makes alcohol. Fiddle with the genes and you can coax it to produce gasoline. Useful, but such synbio projects tend not to be cost-effective. Now, though, biochemists are genetically modifying yeast and algae to produce stuff with good enough profit margins that you could find it in the grocery store (or on the street corner).