Never fear, cheaper — and stronger — beer could soon be here.
British scientists hope to concoct a “designer” genome that could help brewers come up with more potent and less pricey suds, the London Telegraph reported Friday.
The effort, bankrolled by the British government to the tune of $1,510,300 in US dollars hopes to create a new form of bacterium genome that would then be inserted into the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae — and if successful would be the first time researchers have created a synthetic organism, the paper reported.
Scientists hope the new form of yeast would be more hardy than the kinds currently used by brewers, and that could allow beer makers to craft more potent beer at less cost.
“Clearly there are strains of yeast that are highly resistant to alcohol, but they all die off as the alcohol gets higher, so making more alcohol resistant strains will be very useful for that industry in terms of cost value,” Professor Paul Freemont of the Imperial College of London, who is leading the effort.
“Strains that are metabolically more optimal and don’t require as much energy will also be useful.”
Although headed up by the British, the project — known as Sc2.0 — will also involve scientists from around the world. Scientists downplayed fears that the artificial life forms could escape into the wild and change the ecosystem in unanticipated ways by assuring the Telegraph that the new life forms would be engineered so they are unable to survive in the wild.
Read more at The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10171509/Synthetic-yeast-could-make-beer-cheaper-and-stronger.html