United States: Researchers have discovered they can convert plastic waste into painkillers using bacteria, a development that introduces the possibility of a greener way of manufacturing painkillers.
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Both chemists found that E coli can be employed to manufacture paracetamol, commonly referred to as acetaminophen, by processing material that is manufactured in the laboratory out of plastic bottles.
According to Prof Stephen Wallace, the lead author of the research from the University of Edinburgh, “People don’t realize that paracetamol comes from oil currently,” the Guardian reported.
“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,” Wallace added.
In an article published in the journal Nature Chemistry, Wallace and team presented how they made the discovery of a previously unobserved form of chemical reaction, referred to as a Lossen rearrangement, a process that has never been found in nature biocompatible.
Using E. coli to convert post-consumer PET plastic into acetaminophen.
— Niko McCarty. (@NikoMcCarty) June 23, 2025
The researchers discovered a biocompatible Lossen rearrangement; it uses phosphate as a catalyst.
They start the Lossen rearrangement in phosphate buffer and add E. coli; PET to acetaminophen at 92% yield. pic.twitter.com/0Uvn0khU0g
That is, it might be performed in the presence of live cells in a non-destructive manner.
The group arrived at the breakthrough when they processed polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a polymer commonly used in food containers and bottles, using environment-friendly processes of synthesis and transforming the material into another.
By incubating this material with a virulent strain of E coli, the researchers discovered that this was converted into something called Paba, which must have been an action involving a Lossen rearrangement.
More importantly, the Lossen rearrangement normally requires very severe conditions in the laboratory, yet it happened spontaneously in the presence of E. coli, and the researcher found out that it was catalyzed by phosphate inside the cells, the Guardian reported.
The team further indicates that Paba is the required compound that bacteria require, especially during the synthesis of DNA, and it is normally synthesized in the cell using other compounds.
The E coli in the experiments, however, was genetically modified to prevent such pathways, and therefore, the bacteria had no choice but to utilize the PET-based material.