Can drinking beer help cure cancer?

By Davey Winder
Tuesday, 21 October 2008 03:55

Science - Health

The usual rule of thumb in this life is that the things that are the baddest for you are those that you enjoy the most. Now a bunch of boffins might be on the verge of reversing that trend...

Beer is not, let's face it, the first thing that your doctor prescribes when you are feeling poorly. Heck, most health professionals do all they can to convince you to quit drinking the amber nectar altogether if you want to get fit and stay fit.

So I have to raise a glass in the direction of Rice University and say All Hail to the Ale! A hearty cheers goes to the boffins there who have developed a genetically modified beer which could actually help in the battle against cancer and heart disease.

Unlike most beer, this story is hard to swallow in one go. Yet, students at Rice University have indeed been creating a beer using genetic engineeering techniques.

Known as BioBeer, the Rice University special brew includes a chemical called resveratrol that is a phytoalexin produced by some plants when under attack by pathogens. It is also found in the skin of red grapes and is associated with the potential cancer and heart disease reducing properties of red wine.

BioBeer will be attempting to win the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition in Cambridge, Mass on Novemebr 8th and 9th. A devoted to the discovery of synthetic living organisms that do the strangest of things.

In the past, iGEM entrants have included bacteria that act like photographic film and even bacteria that smell like mint while growing and bananas when they stop!

It was after last year's competition when Rice University finished out of the places that the idea for a cancer controlling beer was born. "After last year's contest, we were sitting around talking about what we'd do this year" says junior Taylor Stevenson, when someone "made a joke about putting resveratrol into beer."

Unfortunately, with time running out, the team has still yet to brew a single glass of BioBeer. It has created the genetically modified yeast strain to ferment the beer and produce the resveratrol simultaneously, but that's as far as it has got.

Not that they would be able to drink to their success if they did win anyway, as most of the team responsible for developing BioBeer are not old enough to legally drink beer...