Bottle-to-Drug: Bacteria Convert Plastic Waste into Levodopa

Researchers engineered E. coli to convert PET-derived terephthalic acid into levodopa, a Parkinson’s drug, via a two-step metabolic pathway in a lab proof-of-concept using sequential bacterial strains; not yet scalable, but it demonstrates a potential plastic-to-pharma recycling route and eco-friendly drug production, building on earlier work turning PET into other medicines. Published in Nature Sustainability with EPSRC funding.