Reviving Stone Age Molecules for Modern Medicine
Scientists have reconstructed bacterial genomes of previously unknown bacteria dating to the Pleistocene using dental calculus of humans and Neanderthals. Using their genetic blueprints, they built a biotechnology platform to revive the ancient bacteria’s natural products. The team used the tools of synthetic molecular biotechnology to allow living bacteria to produce the chemicals encoded by the ancient genes. This resulted in the discovery of a new family of microbial natural products that the researchers named “paleofurans.”