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Title: Scientists Use Bacteria To Turn Plastic Waste Into Paracetamol

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/23/1...

Bacteria can be used to turn plastic waste into painkillers, researchers have
found, opening up the possibility of a more sustainable process for producing
the drugs. From a report: Chemists have discovered E coli can be used to
create paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, from a material produced in
the laboratory from plastic bottles. "People don't realise that paracetamol
comes from oil currently," said Prof Stephen Wallace, the lead author of the
research from the University of Edinburgh. "What this technology shows is
that by merging chemistry and biology in this way for the first time, we can
make paracetamol more sustainably and clean up plastic waste from the
environment at the same time." Writing in the journal Nature Chemistry,
Wallace and colleagues report how they discovered that a type of chemical
reaction called a Lossen rearrangement, a process that has never been seen in
nature, was biocompatible. In other words, it could be carried out in the
presence of living cells without harming them. The team made their discovery
when they took polyethylene terephthalate (PET) -- a type of plastic often
found in food packaging and bottles -- and, using sustainable chemical
methods, converted it into a new material.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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