Researchers engineer bacteria to produce plastics

Korean researchers have engineered bacteria to produce biodegradable polymers from glucose. The system modifies enzymes that bacteria use to store energy, allowing them to create polymers incorporating over 150 different molecules. By tweaking the enzymes and bacterial metabolism, the team can control the polymer composition and boost production yields to over 50% by weight. This flexible approach could potentially lead to more sustainable plastic production, though challenges remain in purification and scaling up the process.