A research team at Zhejiang University (ZJU) has cracked a molecular puzzle, turning ordinary yeast into a powerful factory for an expensive cancer drug and boosting its production by a thousand times. The anticancer drug vinblastine has long been sourced exclusively from the Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) plant. But it takes up to 2 tonnes of dried leaves to yield just 1 gram (0.03 ounce) of vinblastine, making it more expensive than gold by weight. This extreme scarcity has kept...