DrakeHeyman
Joined: 28 Jan 21 Posts: 31
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Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2021 4:36 am Post subject: IT'S A HELL OF A LONG WAY FROM HERE! THC and CBD can be made |
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Scientists have genetically engineered microscopic mushrooms to create all the most important psychoactive ingredients of marijuana. In an article published today (Feb. 27) in nature, biomolecular engineers from the University of California at Berkeley have shown that they have developed yeast molecules to create both THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the main active ingredient of weed, which has been approved by the US Food and cbd Administration for the treatment of nausea from cancer cbd and to improve appetite in AIDS patients) and CBD (another marijuana cannabinoid, which is approved by the FDA for the treatment of a rare form of epilepsy.)
The team extracted the genes responsible for THC and CBD from cannabis and implanted them in the same brewer's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which was used to make bread and wine. “Once you design it, you can grow more out of it,”says Jay Kiesling, a professor at Berkeley and co-author of the study. "The yeast is in our freezers, and whenever we want to grow more, we take a sample, put it in sugar water with a few other nutrients. If you have the right sugar there, it will produce cannabinoids." (The” right sugar " in this case is galactose, since Kiesling specifically developed yeast to work with galactose sugar.)
Genetic editing of yeast to produce THC and CBD is cheaper than extracting chemicals from cannabis plants. Kiesling says he will be able to use his engineered yeast to create THC for less than $ 400 per kilogram, which is less than 1% of the cost of collecting cannabis and extracting THC. He has already founded the company Dimetrix, which holds a patent for yeast that produces THC and CBD. Production costs are so low, he says, that the company should be able to make pure forms of THC and CBD more accessible to patients and consumers. |
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