Much of the world struggles with inadequate access to essential medicines and nutrition due to high pharmaceutical prices and unreliable distribution. Our solution is to decentralize production of these resources by engineering the edible cyanobacteria, Arthrospira platensis -- also known as Spirulina, to produce essential medicines and nutrition supplements sustainably, photosynthetically, and on-site at pharmacies and healthcare facilities.

Due to insufficient research into the genetics of A. platensis, we are using the metabolically similar Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 to model two separate engineering endeavors for producing acetaminophen and human-usable vitamin B12. The genes for acetaminophen production, 4ABH and nhoA, and those for B12 production, ssuE and bluB, have been transformed into PCC 7942 with the aim of pathway validation and subsequent migration to A. platensis, once a genetic system has been established. In addition, we are performing a whole genome sequencing of A. platensis UTEX 2340 to further this organism for research and medical applications.