Uncles Tremble as Man Invents Vaccine Delivered by Beer

"By day, virologist Chris Buck works for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Maryland, where he's discovered four of the 13 polyomaviruses we know to affect humans, Science News reports. But by night, he runs Gusteau Research Corporation, a one-man shell company he established so he could experiment on his bubbly inoculation: an ingestible polyomavirus vaccine. To make the beer, Buck engineered a special strain of yeast infused with polyomavirus-like particles."

"Buck's engineered yeast doesn't contain live viruses. Consensus among researchers is that they aren't viable for building ingestible vaccines, as they would simply disintegrate when they make contact with stomach acids, per Science News. Since then, Buck himself has chugged five pints of the brew, along with his brother and other family members. Buck says that after drinking the experimental suds, antibodies for two of the four subtypes of BK polyomavirus in his blood have reached a safemedical threshold for transplant patients."

A researcher engineered yeast to display polyomavirus-like particles and incorporated it into beer to create an ingestible vaccine. The engineered yeast contains no live viruses. When virus-like particles were attached to live yeast, the yeast survived passage beyond the stomach in mice and delivered antigen to sites relevant to polyomavirus infection in the urinary tract, producing antibody responses. Prior studies achieved immune responses using purified particles with insect chitin in rhesus monkeys. A small-scale human self-administration involved drinking multiple pints and resulted in antibodies reaching a safemedical threshold for two BK polyomavirus subtypes. The approach has generated controversy.

Read at Futurism