From brewery to pharma: Yeast's journey to curing diseases

Università Ca' Foscari Venezia

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Scientists at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, in collaboration with researchers from Japan, China, Switzerland, and Italy, have developed an innovative method to produce and rapidly analyse a vast array of macrocyclic peptides, molecules increasingly used in modern medicine. The research, published in Nature Communications, harnesses the familiar brewer's yeast, turning billions of these tiny organisms into miniature fluorescent factories, each capable of creating a unique peptide with potential therapeutic applications.

Macrocyclic peptides are promising drugs because they combine precision targeting, stability, and safety, offering fewer side effects than traditional drugs. However, conventional methods for discovering and testing these peptides are often complex, difficult to control, slow, and environmentally unfriendly.

To overcome these limitations, the researchers engineered common brewer's yeast cells to individually produce different macrocyclic peptides. Each yeast cell acts like a tiny factory that lights up when producing the compound, allowing scientists to swiftly identify promising peptides. Using advanced fluorescence-based techniques, the team screened billions of these micro-factories in just a few hours, a process that is significantly faster and more eco-friendly than existing methods.

Sara Linciano, lead author and postdoctoral researcher at Ca' Foscari’s Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems, explains: "We manipulated yeast cells so that each one functions as a 'micro-factory' that becomes fluorescent when producing a specific compound. This allowed us to analyse 100 million different peptides rapidly and effectively."

Ylenia Mazzocato, co-leader of the study, highlights the sustainability of their approach: "By exploiting the natural machinery of yeast, we produce peptide molecules that are biocompatible and biodegradable, making them safe for health and the environment, a truly 'green pharma' approach."

The team also clarified how these peptides precisely bind to their targets. Zhanna Romanyuk, who contributed to the structural analysis, says: "Using X-ray crystallography, we demonstrated the excellent binding properties of these peptides, confirming their precision and potency."

This new method offers significant advancements for drug discovery, especially for challenging targets that conventional drugs cannot easily address. Alessandro Angelini, associate professor and study coordinator, emphasises: "We are pushing the boundaries of this technology to create macrocyclic peptides that can deliver advanced therapies directly to specific cells, potentially revolutionising treatments. This could greatly benefit patient health and have substantial scientific and economic impacts."

This work was part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), supported by the European Union's Next Generation EU initiative, involving multidisciplinary teams from Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Kyoto Institute of Technology (KIT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Padova, and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), including experts in chemistry, biophysics, biochemistry, and computational sciences.

Part of this technology has already been patented by Ca' Foscari and was recently acquired by the startup Arzanya S.r.l. "Seeing our technology gain international recognition makes me proud," Angelini concludes. "I I hope Arzanya S.r.l. can provide our talented young researchers with the opportunity to pursue their passions here in Italy, without necessarily needing to move abroad."

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-60907-x 

Article Title

Screening macrocyclic peptide libraries by yeast display allows control of selection process and affinity ranking

Article Publication Date

25-Jun-2025

COI Statement

S.L., Y.M., Z.R., and A.A. declare that they are co-founders of Arzanya S.r.l. and have submitted a patent application that has been filed in the Italian Patent and Trademark Office on behalf of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice pertaining to the generation of the yeast display macrocyclic peptides naive libraries of this work (international publication number WO/2025/083029 entitled ‘Generation of disulfide-tethered macrocyclic peptide libraries displayed on the surface of yeast cells’). The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

 

TotalEnergies Acquires 25% Stake in Suriname’s Block 53 from Moeve

By Editorial Dept - Jun 27, 2025

TotalEnergies has acquired a 25% stake in Block 53 offshore Suriname from Spain’s Moeve, formerly known as CEPSA, as part of Moeve’s broader divestment from non-renewable assets. The block lies adjacent to TotalEnergies’ $10.5 billion Gran Morgu project, which reached a final investment decision in October 2023 and is estimated to hold over 700 million barrels of recoverable resources.

Block 53, operated by Houston-based APA Corporation (45% stake), also includes Petronas (30%) as a partner. The acquisition will allow TotalEnergies to expand its presence in Suriname, where oil and gas production has yet to begin but where significant exploration success mirrors the early stages of neighbouring Guyana’s energy boom.

Moeve’s exit from Block 53 marks the completion of its withdrawal from upstream operations across Latin America, following the sale of its assets in Colombia and Peru. Since 2022, Moeve has divested 70% of its oil and gas portfolio, in line with its “Positive Motion” strategy aimed at shifting over 50% of operating profit to sustainable businesses by 2030. These include green hydrogen, advanced biofuels, and other low-carbon technologies.

In recent years, Moeve has also exited Abu Dhabi and its retail LPG business in Spain and Portugal, with transactions valued at €1.5 billion and €275 million, respectively.

The acquisition by TotalEnergies reinforces its strategic footprint in Suriname and supports its long-term upstream ambitions in the region.

Scientists Pitch $117 Trillion Wind-Solar Super Network

By Irina Slav - Jun 26, 2025

• Scientists propose a $117 trillion global wind-solar grid, arguing it could provide constant, clean power by connecting regions with surplus renewable energy to those in need.
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• Theoretical benefits include energy abundance and reduced infrastructure needs.
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• WWII STYLE MOBILIZATION AND CENTRAL PLANNING REQUIRED
• Political and economic hurdles make the idea highly impractical, with massive upfront costs, global coordination challenges, and geopolitical tensions making implementation unlikely.
• 
  

The ongoing transition from baseload power generation to weather-dependent sources of electricity has proven quite challenging due to this dependence. Now, a team of scientists says the challenges are not insurmountable. We just need to build a globally interconnected system of wind and solar.

It sounds like a huge undertaking fraught with its own challenges, and indeed it is. For the time being, then, the idea is only theoretical, with the scientists claiming it would result in energy abundance for every part of the world, thanks to the planet’s huge wind and solar resources that we have yet to harness in an optimal way.

“Theoretically, the potential of solar and wind resources on Earth vastly surpasses human demand,” the team, comprising researchers from China, Denmark, and the United States, said. Yet the way we are currently using these resources is rather fragmentary and sub-optimal. A global interconnected system built on wind and solar as sources of electricity, on the other hand, would ensure a consistent supply everywhere, the paper argued. So, essentially, the researchers are proposing a sort of a real-life version of the centralized global governments from the world of science fiction. Instead of a government, however, it’s a centralized, coordinated global grid.

In the simplest terms, the central argument of the team comes down to the fact that there is always wind blowing somewhere in the world and, equally, somewhere it’s daytime and the sun is shining. With separate grids, neither the wind nor the sun can be made to work to their full potential. With a centralized grid, on the other hand, we can send wind-generated power half across national borders to where it is needed. The idea is basically a global version of what the UK is trying to do with its own grid, bringing wind power from Scotland to southern England where the demand is highest.

Theoretically, it’s simple. Practically, however, it is not. First, a whole new grid would need to be built, featuring ultra-high-voltage transmission lines to carry the electricity over vast distances without equally vast losses along the way. That new grid would also need even more wind and solar, and we’re talking utility-scale, not rooftop. All this costs a pretty penny—so pretty indeed that Europe, which is a wealthy place, is having trouble upgrading its grid for the wind and solar it already has, and we are not talking about UHV lines, we are talking normal transmission lines.

So, cost is definitely one problem with the researchers’ idea, even though they claim that the global, centralised grid would save money eventually. It would also require building less wind and solar capacity than a fragmentary system. Upfront, however, it would require investments of $117 trillion, according to the team, led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“Many areas – such as North Africa’s deserts, Central Asia’s steppes, Patagonia’s windswept plains and Western Australia’s sun-rich territories – have world-class solar and wind resources but low local demand,” one of the authors, Yao Ling, told the South China Morning Post. “A global solar-wind system would significantly incentivise the development of renewable energy in such regions.”

One might reasonably argue that such a system would eventually morph into that sci-fi style global government because, once again, it would need to be coordinated globally. And this is where the insurmountable differences come. Politics, geopolitics, national interests, and differing priorities between national governments all make the idea of the researchers rather unrealistic, at least at this point in time. The chances of that changing anytime soon are slim to none. It may be for the best, too.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

 

Shell Boosts Natural Gas Production at Norway’s Ormen Lange Field

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Jun 27, 2025

Shell and its partners have started up two subsea compressors to boost the recovery rate at the Ormen Lange natural gas field in the Norwegian Sea, the UK-based supermajor, which operates the field, said on Friday. 

Shell expects the compression stations to raise the gas recovery rate to 85% from the current 75%. 

The two new compressor stations are installed on the seabed 120 kilometers (75 miles) from shore and are directly connected to the processing plant at Nyhamna. 

The increased recovery rate will allow the extraction of 30–50 billion cubic meters more gas from Ormen Lange, Shell said.  

Ormen Lange’s gas, processed at Nyhamna on the west coast of Norway, is being exported to the UK and the EU.

Norway has been boosting its gas production since 2022 when it overtook Russia as Europe’s top gas supplier. Not a member of the EU, but a NATO founding member and key EU and UK ally, Norway looks to continue providing the gas Europe needs. 

So companies operating offshore Norway are raising production of gas and oil, with the support of the Norwegian government, which continues to bet on the oil and gas industry and the massive revenues it raises for the country and its sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest. 

This month alone, independent Norwegian oil and producer Var Energi announced the startup of its Balder X project in Norway’s North Sea, which will boost output from the Balder field by about 80,000 barrels of oil  equivalent per day (boepd). In addition, Equinor said that the Johan Castberg oilfield in the Barents Sea had reached full capacity of 220,000 barrels per day (bpd), just three months after the field in Norway’s Arctic waters came on stream. 

Norway expects its oil liquids production to rise by 5.2% in 2025 from 2024, also thanks to the start-up of Johan Castberg.  

Yet, further exploration efforts and new discoveries would be crucial to slowing the expected decline in Norway’s oil and gas production in the 2030s, the Norwegian authorities have said.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

 

BYD is Cutting Production Despite Strong Sales

By ZeroHedge - Jun 27, 2025

BYD stock and its U.S. listed ADRs slumped about 3% on Wednesday this week, after it was reported the vehicle manufacturer was cutting production.

China’s top automaker is scaling back production at several factories due to rising vehicle inventories and slower-than-expected sales growth, multiple outlets including Reuters and CarNewsChina reported.

The company has canceled night shifts and delayed adding new production lines, reducing output at at least four factories by about one-third. “There were two reasons for the mentioned actions: saving costs and failing to meet targets,” two sources told Reuters.

In May 2025, BYD launched aggressive discounts across 22 of its models, slashing prices by as much as 53,000 yuan (USD 7,390) in an attempt to ease dealership backlogs. However, inventories continued to rise despite the deep price cuts. A major dealer network in eastern China even suspended operations, partly due to unsold stock.

According to a May 2025 survey by the China Automotive Dealer Association, BYD dealers held an average of 3.21 months of inventory—more than double the national brand average of 1.38 months—making it the highest among all carmakers in the country.

The report continues, saying production is also showing signs of strain. Although BYD’s domestic sales rose 11% year-over-year to over 1.15 million vehicles from January to May, and exports more than doubled to 374,200 units, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) showed production growth had nearly stalled at just 0.2% in May.

Despite these challenges, BYD set a record for car registrations in China during the week of June 16–22, hitting 83,400 units—an 18.6% increase from the prior week and nearly 25% higher than the same week in 2024. In total, the company registered 208,550 vehicles in the first three weeks of June.

We've noted over the last year that BYD has been the tip of the spear in Chinese auto manufacturing becoming more popular globally.

Over the past year, BYD has emerged as the dominant force in the global auto market, overtaking Tesla in Q4 2024 as the world’s top seller of battery-electric vehicles.

Its total sales reached 4.27 million in 2024—a 41% jump—driven by aggressive pricing, a strong domestic lead in China, and surging exports, which more than doubled to over 417,000 units. BYD's vertically integrated supply chain and wide model lineup, including the best-selling Seagull and Atto 3, gave it a cost and production edge.

By Zerohedge.com 

 

Iran-Based Social Media Campaign Targets Saudi Aramco

By Charles Kennedy - Jun 27, 2025

Car Online, an Iran-based campaign on social media channels, has started to call on its subscribers and followers to incite Yemenis to target facilities of Saudi oil giant Aramco, as a revenge against U.S. strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) says. 

The Car Online channel on Telegram began its life as an Iranian social media operation, FDD researchers uncovered last week. During the so-called 12-day war between Israel and Iran, the Car Online operation was instructing followers how to create fake X accounts and use ChatGPT to translate posts from Persian into Hebrew—posts that were meant to be demoralizing messages for the Israeli public in Hebrew. 

But this conflict ended – for now – after the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites last weekend, with Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan hit in coordinated air strikes, which the U.S. Administration says were a resounding success to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. 

After these strikes, the Iranian campaign on social media shifted its focus to Saudi Arabia, FDD has found this week. 

“Two days after U.S. strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, Car Online shifted its focus to encouraging participants to incite Yemenis to strike Aramco with missiles, claiming Saudi money helps fund American bombs,” writes Max Lesser, a senior analyst on emerging threats at FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation. 

Since the U.S. attacks, Car Online has provided a model post to its participants that calls for revenge against Saudi Arabia and the U.S., with Aramco mentioned as a target, FDD says.  

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have claimed in the past they have hit oil infrastructure assets in Saudi Arabia and have taken responsibility for several high-profile attacks in the region.  

The most notable attack that the Yemeni rebel group claimed responsibility for was the September 2019 attacks on Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities that cut off 5% of daily global supply for weeks, sending oil prices soaring. But Saudi Arabia and the United States have said that it was Iran—and not the Houthis—who was responsible for the attack. 

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

China Records Hydropower Boom Amid Power Storage Push

By Alex Kimani - Jun 26, 2025

• China dominates global hydropower storage.
• 
  
• Pumped storage remains the world’s top long-duration storage technology.
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• China’s Fengning station alone can deliver 40 GWh of power—dwarfing U.S. battery sites like Moss Landing, which has just 3 GWh capacity.

Previously, we reported that the United States is witnessing a power storage boom, with a 15-fold increase in utility-scale battery storage capacity since 2020 to nearly 30,000 megawatts (30 GW). Nineteen states have installed at least 100 MW of utility-scale battery storage, driven largely by falling battery costs.

However, this surge in battery capacity pales in comparison to China’s hydropower growth. According to the International Hydropower Association, China accounted for nearly 60% of the 24.6 GW in new global hydropower capacity commissioned in 2023. Of China’s 14.4 GW additions that year, 7.75 GW was pumped storage hydropower (PSH), which is a cost-effective, long-duration storage method that uses reservoirs to store and dispatch electricity by moving water uphill and downhill during off-peak and peak demand.

China has been ramping up hydropower construction since announcing its carbon neutrality goal for 2060. As of the end of 2023, it had installed nearly 436 GW of hydropower capacity, more than a third of its combined 1,200 GW in wind and solar capacity, and over 75% of all hydropower capacity in Asia, according to China’s National Energy Administration.

A recent IHA report states: “With more than 200 GW of PSH projects under construction or approved, China is on track to exceed its 2030 target of 120 GW, potentially reaching 130 GW by the end of the decade.” The country’s revised Energy Law took effect in January 2025 and encourages the structured development of PSH projects, reinforcing China’s dominant position in global energy storage

PSH Boom

Pumped storage hydropower accounts for more than 90% of global long-duration energy storage capacity, making it the leading technology for shifting renewable power over time. China’s Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station—located in Fengning County, Hebei—is the world’s largest PSH facility, with a capacity of 3.6 GW across 12 reversible pump-turbine units. Fully charged, the plant can deliver up to 40 GWh of electricity over 10.8 hours. It supplies roughly 6.61 TWh annually to the grid while consuming 8.71 TWh for pumping—yielding a round-trip efficiency near 76%. Fengning supports a nearby 10 GW hybrid wind and solar installation in Zhangjiakou.

In comparison, the world’s largest lithium-ion battery project, the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility, in California, has a maximum capacity of 750 MW / 3,000 MWh after its most recent expansion. Operated by Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST), it provides peak support to the grid using surplus solar and wind energy.

A Global Trend

Other countries are also adopting PSH to back renewable generation. In the Asia-Pacific region, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos are advancing PSH plans through updated regulatory frameworks. Indonesia and Malaysia are exploring hydro-solar hybrid models. Infrastructure projects such as Australia’s HumeLink and Indonesia’s planned Super Grid are designed to integrate more hydropower into national energy mixes.

Australia has set a target to reach 82% renewables by 2030, and PSH is a key component. A proposed 1.6 GW project would utilize WaterNSW reservoirs, while another at Glenbawn is planned at 770 MW / 7.7 GWh (10-hour duration), according to ARENA.

U.S. Lags Behind

In contrast, the U.S. has 21.2 GW of PSH capacity across 43 plants—accounting for about 70% of its total utility-scale energy storage, per the U.S. Department of Energy. While no new large-scale PSH facilities have been completed since the 1990s, interest is rising: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued 49 preliminary permits for PSH projects since 2017, totaling over 33 GW of proposed capacity (FERC source).

Nonetheless, the U.S. faces political and environmental hurdles. Land and water concerns, as well as environmental justice issues, complicate siting new plants. Additionally, the Trump administration has proposed cutting major portions of Inflation Reduction Act funding for renewable energy, while supporting expanded fossil fuel development—potentially undermining new PSH initiatives.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com