Slashdot Mirror
Designing DNA Circuits To Brew Tastier Beer
Al writes "Researchers at Boston University have developed a way to predict the behavior of different DNA segments and make synthetic biology a little bit more reliable. James Collins and colleagues have built libraries of component parts and a mathematical modeling system to help them predict the behavior of parts of a gene network. Like any self-respected bunch of grad students, they decided to demonstrate the approach by making beer. They engineered gene promoters to control when flocculation occurs in brewers yeast, which allowed them to finely control the flavor of the resulting beer."
... selling this technology to the cigar or wine industries.
Because of terroir, different regions are going to have different climates and different soil content to produce different tasting or different quality products.
But imagine being able to grow a grape in Sonoma or some cigar tobacco in Honduras and have them taste just as if they had come from France or Cuba respectively by genetically engineering a strain. Sure, some would want and have the option to keep their wines and cigars just the way they currently are. But for those who desire a taste that is currently well outside of their price range or (in the case of Cuban cigars) illegal due to embargo, this would be a boon.
There is, for example, a stark difference between Cuban tobacco from before and after 1996. Why? They changed from using corojo tobacco to a corojo/cigarette tobacco hybrid that would withstand mold. The flavor and richness are not the same anymore. But perhaps with some genetic tweaking, they can create a strain which is resistant to the mold AND shares the same flavor characteristics as the old corojo leaf.
So even at the top of the ladder, there is room for improvement.
Also, I'd like to volunteer my services to test their beer.
The hype: Skyy Vodka
The reality: Skyy Vodka is a marketing company. Manufacturing is outsourced. They buy bulk ethanol from a MGP Ingredients (formerly Midwest Solvents Company) plant in Pekin, IL. MGP makes ethanol for beverage and industrial purposes. They used to sell ethanol for fuel, too, but that ended in February 2009 due to financial losses; their production costs were too high for fuel use.
The ethanol is pumped into tank cars and shipped by rail to Frank-Lin Distillers Products in San Jose, CA., which has their own railroad sidings. Frank-Lin bottles, along with Skyy Vodka, most of the low-end booze on the West Coast. They make everything from brandy to whiskey, by mixing ethanol, water, and flavoring. They make over a thousand different "brands", although they only have about a hundred different recipes.
Frank-Lin is very automated. They have automated bottling lines that can change from one bottle and product to another without human intervention, and equally flexible packaging systems. So they can create the illusion of thousands of products, all coming from one plant.
It's all just flavored ethanol. Deal with it.