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BioBeer: At the very yeast, it fights cancer
Bioengineering and biochemistry undergraduates design beer with cancer-preventing resveratrol
Cindy Dinh
Issue date: 10/31/08 Section: News
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.
The team will pitch their BioBeer idea next Friday and Saturday at the Internally Genetically Engineered Machine competition held annually at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is the third year Rice has competed in the prestigious biology competition.
"We're at this halfway mark in our project," Stevenson said. "We're going to have preliminary data to show, but to complete this full project we need to add another component to our genetic circuit or another step in the metabolic pathway."
It takes about 10 days to make beer, but the team will be presenting partially fermented beer at the competition, he said.
"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.
The team will pitch their BioBeer idea next Friday and Saturday at the Internally Genetically Engineered Machine competition held annually at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is the third year Rice has competed in the prestigious biology competition.
"We're at this halfway mark in our project," Stevenson said. "We're going to have preliminary data to show, but to complete this full project we need to add another component to our genetic circuit or another step in the metabolic pathway."
It takes about 10 days to make beer, but the team will be presenting partially fermented beer at the competition, he said.
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Dave Simpson
posted 10/31/08 @ 10:41 AM CST
Resveratrol can help you to lead a long and healthy life so says Dr. Oz.
Red wine alone does not supply enough resveratrol to achieve the
full range of benefits because one glass of red wine has only about
1mg of resveratrol and you need about 250mg/day. (Continued…)
pnguyen
Peter
posted 11/01/08 @ 1:21 AM CST
Good point on the dosing of resveratrol. Most of the relevant studies (to humans) are those of mice, which have typically used 22-186 mg of resveratrol/kg*day in the experiments. (Continued…)
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