Six or so years ago, a friend of mine and I were talking about how the US had destroyed poppy fields in Afghanistan on a large scale (I think to block Taliban funding or something) despite the WHO listing morphine as a critical drug in short supply.
Being enterprising sophomore Bio students who had a basic grasp on cellular machinery, we then somehow spun that story into the idea of mass-producing plant alkaloids from rapidly reproducing microbes (except we imagined bacteria rather than fungi). We always had "crazy" discussions like that and I never gave it a second thought afterward.
What's really funny to me is what a pipe dream (no pun intended) it seemed like at the time-- maybe the beginning of a bad sci-fi story at best. But here we are today and it's so incredible to me that this team was able to bring that idea to life.
Now I'm left wondering what other crazy discussions will turn into practical real-world applications in the next six years.
You're not the only person who has thought along those lines. I've seen multiple proposals to mass-produce plant alkaloids using microbes (bacteria or yeast). Very few people have the skills required to do this; you have to be an expert in chemistry, as well as molecular biology, and also be patient and good at running experiments and getting funded. And you've probably also have to be lucky in choosing what synthesis to work on.
See also the iGEM competition:
https://www.igem.org/Main_Page
the students who work on those projects often come up with really clever ideas and implementations, which has the potential to push the field along faster than if it was just academically funded professors and some startups.
I'm well aware that ideas are a dime a dozen and that there is no realistic way that I could have brought that idea to life.
I wasn't trying to make a "I had that idea first! I could have made millions!" type of comment. My point was just how wild it is that it seemed to unrealistic at the time but now it's reality. I also thought it was an interesting coincidence that we happened to think of the same alkaloid that this project created.
Being enterprising sophomore Bio students who had a basic grasp on cellular machinery, we then somehow spun that story into the idea of mass-producing plant alkaloids from rapidly reproducing microbes (except we imagined bacteria rather than fungi). We always had "crazy" discussions like that and I never gave it a second thought afterward.
What's really funny to me is what a pipe dream (no pun intended) it seemed like at the time-- maybe the beginning of a bad sci-fi story at best. But here we are today and it's so incredible to me that this team was able to bring that idea to life.
Now I'm left wondering what other crazy discussions will turn into practical real-world applications in the next six years.