UC Berkeley Professor Jay Keasling was recently featured in Newsweek for his pioneering work on the development of a new route for the production of artemisinin, an effective antimalarial drug. Artemisinin had previously been extracted from wormwood plants, but the extraction process was time-intensive and not very efficient.
Keasling spliced wormwood genes into yeast DNA in such a way that the resulting cell would convert sugar into artemisinin. This new production method is much cheaper and more efficient than the previous method.
Even more importantly, the method will allow large scale production of artemisinin, which will be made available (and at a much lower cost) to the people who need it but could previously not afford it.
Keasling spliced wormwood genes into yeast DNA in such a way that the resulting cell would convert sugar into artemisinin. This new production method is much cheaper and more efficient than the previous method.
Even more importantly, the method will allow large scale production of artemisinin, which will be made available (and at a much lower cost) to the people who need it but could previously not afford it.
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