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Christina Smolke

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Christina Smolke is an American synthetic biologist whose primary research is in the use of yeast to produce opioids for medical use.[1] She is Associate Professor of Bioengineering and of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University.[2]

Biology research

Smolke and her laboratory team at Stanford University have pioneered work into the creation of a synthetic enzyme that converts reticuline, a key element of opioids.[3][4] The process adds five genes from two different organisms to the yeast cells. Three of these genes come from the poppy, and the others from a bacterium that lives on poppy plant stalks. They produced the first narcotic using synthetic biology.[5][6]

Awards

  • World Technology Award in Biotechnology (Individual), World Technology Network (2009)
  • Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (2008)
  • National Science Foundation CAREER Award, National Science Foundation (2006)
  • Beckman Young Investigator Award, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation (2005)
  • TR100, Top 100 Young Innovators of the World, Technology Review (2004)

Selected publications

  • Metabolic Pathway Engineering Handbook (2 volumes), CRC Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0849339233
  • Stephanie Galanie1, Kate Thodey2, Isis J. Trenchard2, Maria Filsinger Interrante2, Christina D. Smolke2. Complete biosynthesis of opioids in yeast. Science 4 September 2015: Vol. 349 no. 6252 pp. 1095-1100 DOI: 10.1126/science.aac9373
  • Win, Maung Nyan, and Christina D. Smolke. "Higher-order cellular information processing with synthetic RNA devices." Science 322.5900 (2008): 456-460.
  • Pfleger, Brian F., et al. "Combinatorial engineering of intergenic regions in operons tunes expression of multiple genes." Nature biotechnology 24.8 (2006): 1027-1032.
  • Bayer, Travis S., and Christina D. Smolke. "Programmable ligand-controlled riboregulators of eukaryotic gene expression." Nature biotechnology 23.3 (2005): 337-343.
  • Win, Maung Nyan, and Christina D. Smolke. "A modular and extensible RNA-based gene-regulatory platform for engineering cellular function." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104.36 (2007): 14283-14288.

References

  1. ^ Rachel Feltman (13 August 2015). "Scientists engineer yeast to turn sugar into hydrocodone". Washington Post. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  2. ^ "Narcotic Drugs Can Be Coaxed From Yeast". The New York Times. 14 August 2015. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  3. ^ "Stanford bioengineers develop a toolkit for designing more successful synthetic molecules". Stanford University. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  4. ^ Nadia Kounang, CNN (28 August 2015). "Can synthetic narcotics lead to heroin? - CNN.com". CNN. Retrieved 11 February 2016. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  5. ^ "365 days: Nature's 10". Nature News & Comment. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  6. ^ "Stanford bioengineers close to brewing opioid painkillers - KurzweilAI". Retrieved 11 February 2016.
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