From PET to levodopa: the Edinburgh researchers' experiment

Could a used plastic bottle become a source of molecules for medicine production? University of Edinburgh researchers have demonstrated a biological route in the laboratory for turning PET into levodopa, or L-DOPA, an active ingredient used in Parkinson's treatment.

As the university and the research paper explain, PET is first broken down into chemical building blocks, including terephthalic acid. Engineered E. coli bacteria then carry out a sequence of reactions leading to L-DOPA. The team produced and isolated the compound at preparative scale, including from a post-consumer bottle.

This does not mean medicines on pharmacy shelves are already made from recycled bottles. Industrial and pharmaceutical use would require further checks on purity, safety, yield, costs and environmental performance. The study does show that carbon in plastic waste may have uses more valuable than disposal.

The result suggests a wider view of recycling: it need not always produce another plastic object. Under the right technical and regulatory conditions, recovered material could enter other value chains.

The cover is an AI-generated illustration, not a photograph of the laboratory.

Sources: University of Edinburgh; study in Nature Sustainability.