Researchers in professor John Dueber’s lab have taken us one step closer to producing more medications through synthetic biology by replicating some of the chemical processes of the opium poppy in yeast. Will DeLoache, bioengineering graduate student and study lead author, and collaborators, were able to synthesize the poppy compound reticuline from tyrosine, a derivative of glucose.

Professor Gerard Marriott’s lab has found amazing applications for a new type of genetically encoded fluorescent protein that is found in a symbiont populating the light organ of the ponyfish. The uniquely low mass and long fluorescence lifetime of the protein make it potentially useful as a biosensor to carry out rapid, quantitative and proteome-wide analyses of specific protein interactions, or to screen for drugs designed to disrupt a specific protein complex in a living cell.