The Ultimate Life Hack

What if you could alter your DNA profile, erase your risk for cancer, or just brew glowing beer? That’s the dream of biohacker Josiah Zayner, and whether that makes you giddy or terrified, he’s determined to take genetic engineering to Ultithe masses.

- Rowan Jacobsen

Josiah Zaynerand I are drinking fluorescent green beer at the ODIN, his Oakland lab. The tables are scattered with pipettes and disposable blue gloves, cases of Red Bull and Slim Jims are near at hand, and Drake is pulsing on the sound system. It’s not St. Patrick’s Day, and the beer isn’t really all that green. It’s the ghostly luminescence of jellyfish pulsing through the depths. That’s because it’s chock full of glowing jellyfish protein.

But no jellyfish were harmed in the making of this beer. Zayner is the world’s most notorious biohacker—a new breed of garage tinkerer experimenting with DNA and bio logical systems outside the confines of traditional research. In this case, he genetically engineered a common brewer’s yeast by adding a jellyfish’s green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene that he ordered online. As long as you know the DNA sequence of the gene you want— the A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s of the genetic code—you no longer need the actual critter the gene came from. You just run off the code on a special DNA printer containing cartridges filled with liquid A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s. Then you insert the new DNA into which ever organism you want to modify. The process is shockingly easy.

I raise my glass and pause. Zayner’s yeast suffuses the beer with a gauzy haze. I have no idea which species of jellyfish the GFP gene came from, but my hunch is that it has never been a regular part of the human diet. Zayner assures me it’s safe. Genetic engineers love GFP because it’s such an easy visual. They include it with whichever other gene they’re trying to insert, and if their organism glows, they know the experiment worked without having to send off a sample for DNA sequencing. Scientists have engineered glowing cats and mice using GFP, he points out, and the creatures lived just fine.