Watch CBS News

Discovery By UC Berkeley Scientists May Lead To Home Brewing Of Life-Saving Medications

BERKELEY (KPIX 5) -- Imagine being able to home-brew drugs that could potentially save your life. A breakthrough at UC Berkeley could be paving the way, but the discovery could be a double-edged sword.

Professor John Dueber's research team has discovered a process to create an entire class of pharmaceuticals. "That enables production of these products in a yeast cell, which we can grow, similar to how you brew beer. We can grow very quickly and abundantly," Dueber told KPIX 5.

Graduate student Will DeLoache was working with common beet cells when suddenly they began to produce a fluorescent orange substance found in a completely different plant.  The team discovered they could make common yeast turn sugar into an entire class of plant-based pharmaceuticals, including cancer therapy drugs and pain killers such as morphine and codeine.

"With this…it's just like night and day," team member Zachary Russ said.

They say the ability to produce drugs from sugar is still a ways off-but not that far.  They believe it could happen within two years' time.

While the scientists have discovered what they can do, it raises an even more difficult question to answer, should they?

The TV show "Breaking Bad" told the story of a high school chemistry teacher who creates a pure form of crystal meth and eventually becomes a violent drug kingpin.  Dueber said the ability for someone to create morphine, and its offspring heroin, as easily as brewing beer, has raised ethical questions among scientists.

"What should we do?  What are the steps we should be thinking about so that we can minimize the risk of the illicit use?" Dueber said.

They believe this discovery could lead to an abundant supply of more-effective, beneficial drugs.  But, as always, it is the side-effects that are raising concern.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.