A team of American scientists would have succeeded in developing a new type of morphine in which the poppy is absent.
Joint research by scientists from Concordia Universities in Montreal (Canada) and Berkeley University in California (United States) has allowed the development of a new process to synthesize morphine without resorting to poppy, usually a plant necessary for the manufacture of the analgesic. Featured in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, this discovery is a major advance in pharmacology, but also worries scientists because it could facilitate the illicit production of opiates.
A cheaper, less addictive morphine
To get rid of the poppy, scientists have used genetically modified yeast and sugar. By introducing a gene from beetroot into yeast, the researchers succeeded in transforming tyrosine (an amino acid) into reticulin, a substance used in the design of most painkillers.
The objective of this research is to create less expensive analgesics, the poppy being a rather expensive product, and therefore accessible to a greater number of patients. This discovery could also make it possible to produce pain relievers of better quality, and more effective. The risk of dependence would also be reduced in comparison with traditional morphine derivatives, according to the authors of this work.
Risky research
On the other hand, the scientists were very clear in their publication. If this new morphine recipe becomes more democratic, it will be necessary to supervise production very closely. According to the article, with some basic knowledge in biology, it would be possible to make a “homemade morphine”, with all the excesses that this entails.
“It’s easy with this substance to produce heroin, it’s a real problem,” says John Dueber of the University of California. This concern is also shared by three American academics, who, in a editorial published on the Nature call for greater regulation by the competent authorities.
If unfortunately this “recipe” ends up in the hands of drug traffickers, the consequences could be disastrous. To avoid this disappointment, the researchers are calling for greater monitoring of laboratories as well as a reduced number of production of yeast strains in order to avoid any theft. Several teams are currently working on the production of strains that require certain specific products in order to be activated.
This is not the first time that researchers have found a substance to improve the quality of analgesics.
Thus, in 2014, an American team had succeeded in extracting a venom from a species of marine cone with strong analgesic properties. Like morphine without poppy, the substance that could be produced from this venom would be 100 times more potent and far less addictive than any product in use today.
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