Home-Brewed Synthetic Opioids Are Finally A Reality Popular Science

Spacecraft won’t have room to carry every drug that might be needed, but the astronauts could use yeasts to produce them on board as required. His team is working out how to make tropane alkaloids, a family of molecules that includes drugs like atropine, scopolamine and cocaine. By 2016, though, his company was proposing a “generative” approach to imagining new drugs. Generative methods can create new data—like drawings, answers, or songs—based on examples they’ve been trained on, as is the case with Google’s Gemini app.

1. Another study by BCG, from 2022, determined that  “AI-native” biotechs (those which say AI is central to their research) were advancing an “impressive” wave of new drug ideas.
2. They describe how an enzyme was extracted from the sugar beet (Beta vulgaris), and through a series of genetic modifications, was able to produce the reaction without destroying the l-DOPA molecules.
3. Now, publishing in Nature Chemical Biology, the team reports that they’ve found the perfect enzyme for the job.

In a search space that can include billions of potential molecules, those time savings add up. At times, Kemper has felt frustrated and worn down by the effort of taking on the price rise – but she vows to continue. Regardless of the outcome of such discussions, something needs to be done. Having pharmacies self-compound medicines is not a sustainable model – it might reduce incentives for developing drugs for rare conditions. The very fact that it gained orphan drug status proves this, it argues. The company also says that “there was no robust evidence that CDCA was effective in CTX until Leadiant produced the data”.

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Traditional societies didn’t understand the biochemistry of these compounds but they did notice their medicinal virtues. Native Andeans chewed or brewed teas from coca leaves to suppress hunger, treat gastrointestinal ailments and for recreation. TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey spotlights how MIT researchers have developed a machine learning technique for proposing new molecules for drug discovery that ensures suggested molecules can ecstasy withdrawal and detox be synthesized in a lab. Coldewey also features how MIT scientists created a new method aimed at teaching robots how to interact with everyday objects. A growing number of drugs, scents and flavours once obtainable only from plants can now be made using genetically modified organisms. Researchers want to add opiates to that list because they are part of a family of molecules that may have useful medicinal properties (see box, below).

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Environmental Protection Agency has provided guidance on cleanup and remediation of methamphetamine labs. Previous studies have shown that certain enzymes can successfully convert tyrosine – an amino acid found in glucose, produced naturally by yeast – into the molecule l-DOPA. This molecule signals to the brain to release the ‘feel-good’ chemical dopamine, which is what you want from a painkiller. But scientists have struggled in the past to make a viable product, because each of these enzymes pushed the reaction too far and destroyed the l-DOPA before it could be of any use. Dueber and his team came up with the ‘recipe’ when they discovered that a certain type of enzyme can turn glucose sugars into morphine, and have for the first time successfully expressed it in a simple form of genetically engineered yeast.

While their intention was to develop new types of cheaper, more effective, and less addictive painkillers, they say that we should now be prepared for this knowledge to be misused, and figure out how to mitigate that. The large tally suggests that computer-generated drugs could become common. A recent report estimated that the world’s top drug companies are spending $6 billion on research and development for every new drug that enters the market, partly because most candidate drugs end up flopping.

Science WeeklyScience Weekly podcast: the problem with drugs for mental illness

One was that early experience of losing friends to illness, which instilled in her an urge to do everything she can to make sick people better. The second is that, although she is highly accomplished, Kemper is self-admittedly hard-headed, and has always had a rebellious streak. “You can ban drugs, but you can’t ban chemistry,” Mike Power, author of Drugs 2.0, explains in this talk at the HIT Hot Topics Conference.

“This elegant approach by Prof. Coley and team is a major step forward to tackle this problem. While there are earlier proof-of-concept works for molecule design via synthesis tree generation, this team really made it work. For the first time, they demonstrated cocaine withdrawal symptoms going through cocaine detox excellent performance on a meaningful scale, so it can have practical impact in computer-aided molecular discovery. Another reason to create drug-producing yeasts, says John D’Auria of Texas Tech University, is for extended crewed space missions.

But many of the best drug designers have a certain “chemical intuition,” he says. It’s a combination of experience, consumption of scientific literature, and a sense for what makes a “beautiful molecule,” a drug that is efficient, potent, and safe. Policymakers’ prime concern should not be which drugs are legal or illegal, but which are the most harmful. Their next problem is how to regulate the market in psychoactive chemicals. That will be more complicated than anyone – even those who advocate radical new approaches, including decriminalisation – dare consider.

They are popular, legal to take and supply, and their use is growing. Barely a week goes by without a press or TV report of a death, or major psychological consequences, as a result of using them. These reports often claim that it is a trivial task to take a banned drug and, with a little molecular trickery, get a Chinese lab to produce a new, legal version. Currently, most methamphetamine in the United States is produced by transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) in Mexico.44 This methamphetamine is highly pure, potent, and low in price.

In Phase II the drug is given to small numbers of patients suffering from the target illness to find the right dosage, frequency, impacts of administering with food and delivery method for the drug. If the results are consistently good, Phase III trials seek to prove the drug across statistically significant numbers of patients—perhaps thousands all around the world. Throughout the clinical trials, results are diligently monitored, analyzed, and published for peer review until the drug is established as safe and effective. They used different processing and administration techniques to adjust the potency of poisons.