Manufacturing Insulin More Efficiently

Insulin is a vital chemical for millions of people suffering from diabetes worldwide. The hormone helps these individuals' bodies break down sugars, and allows them to survive. But obtaining insulin is relatively difficult at this point, despite high demand. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Center for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, Germany, have taken issue with that, and managed to fix the problem by developing a new method for producing the compound more efficiently.

“As we did last year with an alternative protocol for the development of a hepatitis B vaccine, we again decided to use this way and make our knowledge available for everybody,” says HZI expert Ursula, the leader of the research team. She is referring to the fact that the group, which also collaborated with colleagues from India, published details of the study in the open-access scientific journal Microbial Cell Factories. About 12 percent of the German population has diabetes (the highest percentage in Europe), while India has 50 million citizens suffering from the condition.

The group reports that the secret to their new method is the yeast Pichia pastoris. When grown in a special medium, or culture, the microorganism produces the basic building blocks of insulin. The researchers tweaked the yeast cells even further, so that production increased considerably. The achievement is bound to reduce costs, and make the hormone more readily available to whoever needs it. “With our procedure, Pichia pastoris delivers high yields – twice as much as known before. Already with few cells it is possible to produce a lot of the insulin precursor,” Rinas says. Other methods of producing the precious chemical involve either the bacteria Escherichia coli, or the baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

One of the main issues that the collaboration sought to address through this work was the costs associated with purchasing insulin. In the developing world, which includes countries such as China and India, purchasing insulin is oftentimes too expensive for the patients. By reducing costs, and allowing for the chemical to be produced from readily-available microorganisms, the German-Indian team hopes to make the drug more affordable to patients, thus saving thousands of lives.