The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7396 p436
15 April 2006

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Artemisinin production

Scientists have developed a strain of yeast able to produce artemisinic acid, a precursor of artemisinin. They suggest it could be used to generate large amounts of the antimalarial, currently extracted from Artemisia annua. The scientists inserted two genes from A annua into Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Previous research has shown that artemisinic acid can be converted into artemisinin chemically (Nature 2006;440:940).