Is it time for a paradigm shift to solve the pharmaceutical “supply crisis” caused by the industrial instability of plant cell cultures?
Decoupling drug discovery from manufacturing.
Instead of using plants for production, researchers should harness the “productive chaos” of plant stress responses solely to discover new therapeutic compounds. Once discovered, these complex biosynthetic pathways can be transferred to stable microbial hosts or engineered cell factories for reliable, large-scale manufacturing.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning serve as the core engine for this shift by streamlining plant metabolic data into predictive pipelines. AI tools like SIRIUS quickly decode unknown molecular “dark matter,” allowing researchers to annotate, prioritize, and scale novel bioactive candidates far faster than traditional timelines allow.
D A Mosoh et al. Front. Plant Sci. (2026) doi: 10.3389/fpls.2026.1771802
