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Modified yeast "pee-cycles" urine into a valuable biomedical product
There may be a new use for that urine you've been so thoughtlessly flushing. Scientists say it could be an alternate source of a valuable bone- and tooth-repair material, with a little help from a genetically modified type of yeast.
And what's more, a yeast named Saccharomyces boulardii functions much like an osteoclast, in that it scavenges minerals from its environment and stores them in a part of its body called the vacuole. With this fact in mind, scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory set about genetically modifying S. boulardii to make it collect calcium and phosphate, then turn those minerals into hydroxyapatite. The scientists estimate that in a city the size of San Francisco, it would cost about US$19 to produce 1 kg (2.2 lb) of the cultured hydroxyapatite, which could sell for anywhere from $50 to $200 in the US market.
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