Bioengineered Yeast

On that we are in agreement.

Cheers!

 

Others said it was, I was warned ahead of time so I was expecting more sourness.

 

I think the difference is that the insulin is the byproduct of a GMO that is then isolated and the GM organism itself isn't ingested. I think an ethanol product distilled from fermentation with GM yeast would be more analogous to the insulin. Perhaps professional grade filtration removes all of the yeast bodies, I am under the impression that there is always some yeast bodies left in the finished beer that we ingest when we drink it.
I don't personally feel comfortable ingesting these organisms because I haven't seen any long term exposure studies (with things like corn and beer I expect to consume them regularly for decades to come). With something like insulin I would have a much higher risk tolerance then with something like food or beer. It's a shame we won't all be given the choice and instead will have to rely on voluntary certification programs to verify brands that don't use this if it's approved

 

Funny you should use that as an example.

My endocrinologist is no fan. I inject twice a day.
Insulin has been around for decades. cheap. reliable. easy to get.
Not every patient needs bio engineered insulin. but if you need insulin youll be getting what they are making, no choice.

and you'll pay a hundred times more for it. for a product that is basically the same as the stuff they were making in 1950. up to $600 for a box of 5 pens... vs. a few dollars for "old" insulin.

 

"Fifteen years ago, a patient with diabetes might have paid $175.57 for a 20-milliliter vial of the long-acting insulin Humulin R U-500.

Today, he’d shell out $1,487 for the same tiny vial, according to wholesale acquisition cost data from Elsevier’s Gold Standard Drug Database."

‘Everyone is at fault’: With insulin prices skyrocketing, there’s plenty of blame to go around


(You need to register to read the whole article...)

 

I think you are confusing engineered insulin (human insulin with a few mutations, ie. lispro or aspart) and insulin produced using engineered organisms (ie. biotechnology). Literally all pharmaceutical insulin is produced from engineered organisms (yeast or e.coli). In the 1950s you’d be getting insulin from a pig pancreas most likely, and had all kinds of safety issues due to the fact it was a different protein and purity was crap. Thankfully we can now make actual human insulin in engineered organisms, which is much safer. Insulin pricing is definitely crazy though...

 

This is likely a similar strategy used by the Keasling lab at UC Berkeley to make a yeast strain that produced an ipa without adding hops.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03293-x

 

First off, let me say this about the GMO beer yeast in the original article. There are already so many natural ways to sour a beer that I don't see the purpose in engineering yet another sour beer yeast. It doesn't appear the flavors are significantly different or better than what is readily available. It can stay in the lab for all I care. This is at best a baby step towards creating new brewing yeasts that impart flavors that are truly unique/special; call me when that happens.

Ethanol is the most popular beer yeast by-product, but far from the only by-product, otherwise there would be only one brewer's yeast, not thousands to choose from.

Individuals are not toxicologists who can understand this science nor should they be expected to. Society has to rely on the opinions of experts, just as they do for finance, medicine, construction, car repairs, computing technology, farming, police, lawyers, etc. Experts can make mistakes, of course, but choices of the untrained aren't much better than blind stabs in the dark, mostly chance. I clean up industrial pollutants in the environment for my job, and while I am not a toxicologist I do understand toxicology more than the average person. I witness how ignorance and fear of the unknown drive many people to spend inordinate time, energy, and stress over chemicals that are far less dangerous to them than a myriad of common risks they deal with every day. For example the incredibly well-documented poison in our beloved fermented drinks, ethanol, is far more dangerous to us than a great many potential risks some fret over. In extreme cases people are too preoccupied with fear of unknowns to observe or act on the real dangers around them. Addressing public fear also costs money and sometimes even stops good science from moving forward, which GMO has been a victim of.

Comparing medical costs from 1950 to 2019 is bonkers. There are far too many factors involved to make sense of it.

The claim that insulin was easy to get pre-1970 is wrong. There was/is a realistic upper limit to how many pig and cow pancreases could be reliably obtained, the supply was prone disruptions, there were shortages, the quality was poor- sometimes even dangerous, vast regions of the world had no access to any insulin at all, and people died. Thus the original need for science to find a more reliable source of insulin for everyone in the world.

 

Yes indeed.
You make my point quite well. Thank you.

The debate is much broader than simply accepting plant gene manipulation is typically benign.

So why has this solution that was available for many years, the same medicine that cost $40 or $50 in 2000 now costing $1,000? Or in my case $600? For that matter why the F would one person be paying 10x more than the next patient? For a medicine that was approved in 1980? Seems random. It's rhetorical.

People can't afford the bio-engineered solutions and they are literally dying as a result. Right here in America. That is a fact. I don't have a problem with GMO yeast, or bio engineered insulin. Until they ask $200 for the new bio-engineered US-05. Then we got a problem.


Cheers

 

Alert.
I am an Environmental Scientist, have been for many many years. And not a toxicologist either.
So please do not assume that the GP is ill-informed. Everyone really does get to decide, we really do get to form an opinion. We can distinguish between honest science and corporate trickery. We are aware that ethanol is toxic. Toxicity is measured in dosage. There is little point.

What they say in poker is true. If you think you're the smartest guy in the room, you are the mark.

Cheers.

 

My observation is, no the general public cannot distinguish honest science from trickery (and not all "scientific" trickery is corporate). FUD driven by anecdotes and advocacy groups is a much greater influence than you acknowledge.

 

Well there was a report shared here some time ago about a yeast imparting a hop-like bitterness. I think that's interesting, if only because it adds another tool to the brewer's toolbox, but it's possible it could be more consistent than natural hops, which vary based on seasons, field locations, disease, drying or pelletization methods, freshness, storage conditions, etc. Some other things I could imagine yeasts doing that could be interesting are:

• unique flavors we can't easily impart to beer now
• zero or less chance of creating unwanted off-flavors (or more of them, if desired for specific styles)
• fermentation with less alcohol but still have full flavor, mouthfeel, etc.
• fermentation that generates less CO2
  
• more efficient/faster/less expensive brewing without sacrificing flavor
• specialized yeasts for brewing off second-runnings that can wring more out of the malts (i.e. make more beer with less raw material).
• Add beneficial vitamins and minerals

Another thing I can imagine that wouldn't directly impact beer on the market is yeasts that can efficiently/cheaply clean organic material from a brewery's waste-water on site before discharging to municipal sewage treatment plants. Brewery waste water is generally very high in nutrients that can be difficult for many municipal water treatment facilities. We've seen articles about that here before.

 

Not bitterness, this yeast produced the aroma compounds linalool and geraniol, some of the oils that give hoppy aromas.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03293-x