Re: [DIYbio] Re: Targeting Compounds for Biosynthesis using Data

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_ketone

Raspberry ketone is sometimes used in perfumery, in cosmetics, and as a food additive to impart a fruity odor. It is one of the most expensive natural flavor components used in the food industry. The natural compound can cost as much as $20,000 per kg.[5] Synthetic raspberry ketone is cheaper, with estimates ranging from a couple of dollars per pound[9] to one fifth of the cost of the natural product

Not beating a dead horse but that is an example of flavoring that's used a lot.  It's the same chemical compound of course, but being made not in a test tube with synthesis means it can be marketed as "natural". 

Plenty of high-value flavorings and fragrances I'm sure, and I know there are companies trying to make them with microbes as well.

There's also high value natural products, cancer drugs, etc - that are made by some really crazy chemistry in nature but that can't be done synthetically due to stereochemistry.  The more chiral centers the more miserable the synthetic route.

Taxol/Paclitaxel is a good example, starting with Gary Strobel.  

They used to legit harvest tree bark from a pacific yew and extract it, talk about a slow growing organism.  Then Dr. Strobel found a fungal endophyte that produces the same compound.  Now I believe it's done via plant-cell culture in reactors.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paclitaxel

An interesting journey following it though from bark to bioreactor. 

There have been a few natural products I've stumbled across in reading but whose names escape me, that were given up on by pharma because they couldn't be produced at scale.  One was from a marine tunicate I think...can't go rip up all the tunicates off this little island to make 1 compound.  Sometimes they find those products are produced by endosymbiotic bacteria or fungi, but not always.  Idk who is doing tunicate cell expression either, ha.

Another high-value biological is horse-shoe crab blood.  LAL for ensuring medical devices are free from pyrogens.  That's all off the top of my head.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limulus_amebocyte_lysate

On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 4:26 PM Jonathan Cline <jncline@gmail.com> wrote:

--
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups DIYbio group. To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/diybio?hl=en
Learn more at www.diybio.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/e5ba56c9-e575-46ce-9b55-caec693bc955o%40googlegroups.com.

--
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups DIYbio group. To post to this group, send email to diybio@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/diybio?hl=en
Learn more at www.diybio.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to diybio+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/CAGdeWmRnwH3iA0YfJwpa7NryDxpf7mU7b5g5GDQmJRUvM3J2yQ%40mail.gmail.com.

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • RSS

0 comments:

Post a Comment