Story perspectives

Engineered yeast boosts catharanthine output 1,000-fold

8/13/2026

Summary

Story summary

Professor Lian Jiazhang (Zhejiang University) and his team engineered brewer’s yeast to produce 164.9 mg per litre of catharanthine, a thousandfold increase over previous records.
Vinblastine has traditionally been extracted from Madagascar periwinkle, requiring up to 2 tonnes of dried leaves for each gram of the drug.
The work was conducted with Qu Yang (University of New Brunswick) and Wang Yajie (Westlake University) and published in Science on July 16, 2026.

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Story summary

Professor Lian Jiazhang (Zhejiang University) and his team engineered brewer’s yeast to produce 164.9 mg per litre of catharanthine, a thousandfold increase over previous records.
Vinblastine has traditionally been extracted from Madagascar periwinkle, requiring up to 2 tonnes of dried leaves for each gram of the drug.
The work was conducted with Qu Yang (University of New Brunswick) and Wang Yajie (Westlake University) and published in Science on July 16, 2026.