Chinese yeast factory boosts cancer drug production speed 1,000 times

A research team at Zhejiang University has cracked a molecular puzzle, turning ordinary yeast into a powerful factory for an expensive cancer drug and boosting its production by a thousand times.The anticancer drug vinblastine has long been sourced exclusively from the Madagascar periwinkle plant. But it takes 2 tonnes of dried leaves to yield just 1 gram of vinblastine, making it more expensive than gold by weight. This extreme scarcity has kept the drug costly and its supply unreliable for decades.After years of work, a team led by Zhejiang University professor Lian Jiazhang, in collaboration with Qu Yang’s research group at the University of New Brunswick in Canada and Wang Yajie’s team at Westlake University, broke the deadlock.Tapak dara or Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus). Photo: ShutterstockThey engineered brewer’s yeast to produce 164.9 milligrams per litre (0.022 ounces per gallon) of catharanthine – the direct precursor to vinblastine – inside a fermenter. That is nearly 1,000 times higher than any previously published global figure.