Yeast, used by humanity for millennia to make wine, beer and bread, may have a new use, say researchers who've genetically engineered a strain of yeast to create powerful painkilling medicines.
Baker's yeast has been genetically reprogrammed to act on sugar, converting it to pain-killing hydrocodone in just three to five days, researchers at Stanford University report.
In addition to a faster method, it could provide a potentially less costly way to produce a number of different types of medicines normally created from plant sources such as the opium poppy, they say.