Overview
- Published March 16 in Nature Sustainability, the University of Edinburgh study demonstrates the first biological route from waste PET to a neurological medicine.
- The workflow chemically depolymerizes PET to terephthalic acid, then uses a two‑strain E. coli system to convert it to L‑DOPA after addressing transport and inhibition bottlenecks.
- Lab runs achieved a 5.0 g/L L‑DOPA titre with reported conversion efficiencies of 84% from industrial foil‑derived feedstock and 49% from a single discarded bottle.
- The team isolated product at preparative scale under mild aqueous conditions and piloted CO2 capture with microalgae plus bread‑derived glucose as a test carbon source.
- Researchers and funders including UKRI, EPSRC’s C‑Loop hub, IBioIC and Edinburgh Innovations say next steps focus on scalability, product recovery, genomic integration and full environmental and economic assessment.