BioBeer
As many UltimateFatBurner.com visitors know, we have a new “Functional Foods” review section. I’m sampling as fast as I can, so the list of product reviews is getting longer…bit-by-bit.
At this stage of the game, many functional foods are on…the sweet side: beverages, flavored waters, bars, baked goods, shakes and such. I just read about one functional food in the making, however, that looks like an interesting departure from the trend…BioBeer.
Resveratrol, a phytochemical in plants, has been implicated as a natural product that extends lifespan and prevents cancer, coronary disease and neurodegenerative maladies. Unfortunately, resveratrol is only present at appreciable levels in a small number of foods, such as red wine, peanuts, and blueberries. To create an alternative source for resveratrol consumption, we are introducing a biosynthetic pathway for this compound into a brewing strain of yeast and examining whether this strain can be engineered to produce resveratrol during beer fermentation. Given the high worldwide consumption of beer and the low cost of production, unfiltered beer brewed using our genetically modified yeast should provide a cost-effective source of pharmacologically-active resveratrol. This engineering approach should be useful for cheap biosynthesis of other oxygen-sensitive prophylactics.
The project page looks pretty awesome…and it’s not the “white coats” doing it, either – a large contingent of the project team are undergrads. According to a press release:
Guzzling beer may soon be as healthy sipping as a glass of red wine. A team of six undergraduates in Assistant Professor of Bioengineering Jonathan Silberg’s biochemistry and bioengineering lab is working on extracting the antioxidant resveratrol found in red wine and splicing it into beer. This genetically engineered concoction will boast the same cancer-fighting, age-defying benefits naturally found in grapes.
“Resveratrol has a myriad of health benefits like improved cardiovascular function, increased insulin sensitivity for Type II diabetics, and [it] inhibits several proteins known to contribute to cancer,” Sid Richardson College junior Taylor Stevenson, who is working on the project, said.
Since May, the team has worked to genetically engineer yeast cells to produce resveratrol in beer. They have coined the new beer BioBeer.
“I have been planning on doing this at home for awhile, home brewing,” Peter Nguyen, a biochemistry graduate student and adviser to the team, said. “A lot of the undergrads took it upon themselves to do research, and they took the project out of my hands.”
Baker College junior David Ouyang, a member of the research team, said the project is unique because of its degree of undergraduate participation. The undergraduate members of the team are involved in stages of the project’s design, suggestion and implementation, Ouyang said.
Of course, 5 of the 6 undergrads working on the project are under 21, so they’re going to have to pass on the taste tests (once they get to that point).
All in all: BioBeer is a pretty neat concept. This is one product I’ll be interested in sampling, if it ever gets to market. I never thought of beer as a “health food,” but someday…
