Rice University isn’t at all where you learn to harvest. I thought that for a while. I was also seven.

However, the enterprising students here are attempting to create a beer that contains the same red wine chemical that reduces cancer and heart disease.

Warning: gratuitous chemistry details ahead:

The students’ brew is called “Bio-beer” and it uses a yeast genetically engineered to produce resveratrol, a natural compound found in red wine.

The students will take their preliminary work to Cambridge, Mass. this weekend for the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, where students worldwide come to showcase new ideas based on manipulating DNA.

The beer is not drinkable yet. All the students’ work to date has gone into creating a genetically-modified strain of yeast that will ferment beer and produce resveratrol simultaneously.

So, I think the real question here is how much beer do you have to drink to remain cancer-free yet still avoid doing a number on your liver? I hope the over/under is somewhere around seven beers, though I suspect it’s probably lower.

University Students working on Anti-Cancer Beer [All Headline News]