“On top of increasing the levels of resveratrol, the genome knife would also allow scientists to reduce the amount of toxic byproducts that can cause hangovers.”
Huh, so this yeast would reduce the amount of the toxic byproduct that we know as alcohol?
My thought, too.
I think they mean other toxic substances. Since its wine yeast I don’t think alcohol would be considered a “byproduct” as it is the main product. Maybe GMO yeast will cure hangovers by killing us another way.
I get that. It just seems funny since % wise, the biggest toxin by far in wine, beer or liquor would be the alcohol itself. I guess if it makes for a kinder, gentler morning after, so be it.
Perhaps it just doesn’t create methanol which is far more toxic than erhanol
The actual research was simply a proof of concept of this “genome knife” process could be applied to a polyploid cell (such as S. cerevesiae). This simply means that they are able to remove target genes from all copies of a cell’s DNA - which is a novel development for cells that have multiple copies of their genome. They haven’t actually engineered a hangover-free yeast. They have been mentioning in interviews that this is a possible application of this new genome knife technique, among other things, but that wasn’t the true goal of their research.
This is one of those articles where it seems that the further you get from the actual source publication, the more sensational the claims seem to be.