By Jeannie Kever
Forget dashing to Spec's for a six-pack. Head instead to a science lab
at Rice University.

On second thought, maybe you shouldn't. The brew in the second-floor lab
in Keck Hall isn't exactly ready for prime time.

Unless, that is, you're interested in bits of DNA, genetic sequencing
and scientific breakthroughs, with the ultimate goal of creating a beer
that might fight cancer, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

It started, as so many great ideas do, as a joke.

"But then we found that we'd be able to do it," said Thomas
Segall-Shapiro, 20, a junior biochemistry and bioengineering major at
Rice.

"That's when we got sold on the idea."

BioBeer -- a more consumer-friendly name than the original Frankenbeer
moniker -- will be brewed using yeast genetically modified to produce
resveratrol.

Resveratrol, a naturally occurring compound found in red wine and a few
other foods, has been shown to have cancer-fighting and cardiovascular
benefits, at least in mice.

The students will take their preliminary work to Cambridge, Mass., this
weekend for the International Genetically Engineered Machine
competition, where student scientists from around the world showcase new
ideas created from interchangeable parts of DNA.

They don't have drinkable beer yet, although Joff Silberg, assistant
professor of biochemistry and cell biology and one of the group's
faculty advisers, said they should by the end of the semester.

Most of the materials -- chemical solutions, pieces of DNA, common lab
bacteria -- were available from scientific suppliers. A key ingredient
of beer along with water, fermentable sugar and hops, yeast is
responsible for converting sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Students are working to modify the yeast with two sets of genes,
including one that will allow the yeast to metabolize sugars and produce
an intermediate chemical. The second set will convert that chemical to
resveratrol.

That should result in a healthier beer, produced at no additional cost,
said Rice junior Taylor Stevenson.

Why beer? Stevenson points to the numbers: Americans consumed 20.5
gallons of beer per capita in 2005, but only 2.5 gallons of red wine.
Clearly, the students reasoned, beer drinkers were their target market.
As the competition drew closer, students began working longer hours.

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