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November 1, 2008
Genetic engineering we can all use: beer with resveratrol
Genetic Engineering we can use, from a student research project at my alma mater!
College students often spend their free time thinking about beer, but some Rice University students are taking it to the next level. They're using genetic engineering to create beer that contains resveratrol, a chemical in wine that's been shown to reduce cancer and heart disease in lab animals.Rice's "BioBeer" will be entered in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition Nov. 8-9 in Cambridge, Mass. It's the world's largest synthetic biology competition, a contest where teams use a standard toolkit of DNA building blocks -- think genetic LEGO blocks -- to create living organisms that do odd things. Notable past iGEM creations include sheets of bacteria that behave like photographic film and bacteria that smell like mint while they're growing but like bananas when they stop growing
It doesn't sound from the press release that they'll be chugging this genetically modified product at Beer Bike this year.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at November 1, 2008 7:30 AM