Scientists claim to have produced alcohol used as a vaccine: Scientific frenzy

This vaccine protects against the polyoma virus.The problem is that the researcher only tested it on himself.

What happens when we combine the profession of a virologist with the hobby of making craft beer?Many things can happen, but what happened in the head of Chris Buck, researcher at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, became a scientific conflict.And he positioned himself as the first to develop a vaccine delivered through beer.Yes, you read that right.April Fools' Day was yesterday, it's absolutely true.

When he came up with the idea, he could not have any Ethics Committee to approve his research.But that didn't make him give up.Conscious that these committees have no jurisdiction over what it does in its spare time, decided to create a cooking company with the aim of making a very strange beer.Beer that, so far, have only tried.Yes, according to the articles it has been published so far, with alleged results very well.

Its liquid vaccine was developed to offer protection against the human polyoma virus.These are the viruses it contains specifically, but it can be used with other genes.The problem is that without permission to conduct a well-designed study, we don't know if it's really a good technique.Clearly, the ethical implications of their research are not very good.So, in effect, his "argument served."

How does this beer vaccine work?

To develop his beer vaccine, Buck began with genetic isolation and instructions to create a polyomavirus envelope protein.It is one of the proteins that is recognized by the immune system and used as a warning to take action against the threat of the virus.The introduction of this protein into the body is very common in the development of vaccines.The most unusual thing here is the method chosen by this virologist.

He decided to insert a gene into the genome of a yeast species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which was used to make beer.Once this was done, all that remained was to use this genetically modified yeast to brew beer in the conventional way.

Produced beer contains yeast in its composition, even if it is not filtered.So anyone who drinks beer can take this protein into their digestive system, alerting their immune system and causing it to produce memory antibodies against future illness.

What happens in the digestive system?

Oral vaccines already exist.For example, most of us received the polio vaccine as children, which is given orally with a certain type of dropper.In these cases, it works because the poliovirus can penetrate the cells of the intestines.So the weakened virus reaches the digestive system and stimulates the immune system without causing illness.

The problem is that Buck's beer vaccine is based on a yeast that is completely harmless to humans.They do not invade intestinal cells.In fact, they do not invade any cells.

However, the virologist combined these yeasts with food and when they tried to feed mice, they produced antibodies against the polyoma virus.If the yeast was sprayed through the nose, nothing happened, but it was done orally.

The only thing left to do is to try the same thing on humans, using a similar method of administering beer.But since bioethics committees didn't think his proposal was a good idea, he had to turn to Ratatouille.

Yes, it's Ratatouille...

Buck founded Gusteau Research Corporation, named after the great chef Auguste Gusteau from the movie Ratatouille.He is the CEO and sole employee of a company that provides tools to make beer vaccines through cooking rather than medicine.

He was also the company's only customer;Because after brewing the beer, he decided to try it himself.He checked it and waited a reasonable amount of time, then took blood samples for polyomavirus antibodies.Incredibly, his immune system responded and made these antibodies, which should essentially protect against future infections.Or so he says.

After these encouraging results, Buck requested to publish his study on bioRxiv.org, a platform that publishes preprints in the absence of peer review.But permission was denied.The scientists in charge of analyzing the manuscript concluded that a vaccine of the make in question tested on one person was not reliable enough to even show its development in this format.

For this reason, he had to turn to his own blog and platform, Zenodo, where he published his research with his brother Andrew Buck.

Will we be able to test this beer vaccine in the future?For now, we only have news from these two scientists that their research was successful.Without evidence that this is a truly safe procedure with an acceptable benefit/risk balance, he will not be able to get permission to conduct a clinical trial with more people than himself or, perhaps, his brother.scientific news, but without evidence to support it, it's impossible to be sure that this might be the case.something more than that.Also, considering that on his blog, this scientist said he hopes to discuss the topic with Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, ideally it's just a joke.