The bacteria turning waste plastic into painkillers
5 days ago Share Save Zoe Corbyn Technology Reporter, San Francisco Share Save
Getty Images E. coli has been used in many discoveries in genetics and molecular biology
Earlier this year an extraordinary new way of using waste plastic made headlines. A common bacterium was genetically engineered to eat a plastic-derived molecule and then digest it to produce the everyday painkiller, paracetamol. The microbe used by Stephen Wallace, professor of chemical biotechnology at the University of Edinburgh, was Escherichia coli, better known as E. coli. The rod-shaped bacterium is found in the intestines of humans and animals, and you might be more familiar with it as an unpleasant bug that can make us ill. Prof Wallace chose it automatically because certain strains of E.
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