In August, Stanford synthetic biologist Christina Smolke and her team announced successfully using genetically modified baker’s yeast, one strain to convert glucose into the opioid hydrocodone and another strain to create thebaine, an opioid precursor. Other research groups completed the 15-step conversion this year using several yeast strains together, but Smolke’s team was the first to use just a single strain to pull off the conversion from start to finish.