Genetic Engineering vs. Hangover: Test #1

Dramatization.

As promised in my previous post, I’d like to take you all on a journey through my first test of my anti-hangover prototype! To refresh your memory, I genetically engineered a probiotic bacteria to help break down acetaldehyde, a nasty toxin that is one of the major causes of a hangover.

In late April 2017, all the experiments were complete. The prototype existed and passed all the laboratory quality control checks I could think of. A year of work boiled down to one little vial of frozen bacteria. Much like bridge-builders prove confidence in their bridge by standing beneath it as the supports are removed, I knew the only thing to do was to take this stuff myself and see what happened! I mean, somebody won a Nobel Prize for eating the bacteria H. pylori to prove they give you stomach ulcers… this is basically the same thing, right?! Of course, testing it on myself wouldn’t definitively prove that it works, but it could at least tell me whether I was on the right track.

So with dreams of a Nobel Prize (or at the very least some high-fives from a few fratty-boomba-latties in some nebulous future where people are taking this on the regular), I designed an experiment. I would get drunk.

No, drunk isn’t good enough. Slammed? Maybe that’s too far. How about…extra-medium hammered but with a really gnarly mix of hangover-guaranteed alcohol?

Yep, that seems precisely, scientifically correct.

In addition, I wanted this test to mimic a realistic drinking night. Consistency and controlled environments are key, but for this first go, to really convince myself that this was the real deal, I needed it to work in “street” conditions.

So I came up with this misery-inducing protocol:

Every hour for 3 hours I would drink: 1 dark beer (12oz), 1 glass of red wine (125mL), and 1 shot of Fireball (1.5oz). Nine drinks in 3 hours felt sufficient to get me pretty drunk, and with that mix of alcohols I felt confident that I’d be pretty unhappy the next day if my prototype didn’t work.

OK, so:

• Protocol — Check.
• Safety — Check (I “volunteered” my girlfriend to spot me on this…Thanks, Hayley).
• Landmark test date — Check (I decided to do it on the eve of my birthday so I could wake up hangover-free on my birthday as the best gift ever. I chose not to consider the possibility that I could be giving myself the worst gift ever — a vicious hangover and a failed year of effort — if it didn’t work).

All that was left was to go for it. I got home and laid out my “reagents” for the evening’s experiment: a 6-pack of Newcastle, a bottle of red wine, a bottle of Fireball (purchased by my mom as a birthday gift — extra fun because she doesn’t drink but is really trying hard to be supportive of me. What a cool mom.), and, most importantly, my test product.

Holy shit, here we go…

I take the prototype at about 8:30 p.m. and then start drinking. I have my dinner around 9:30 p.m. (mimicking a night where you grab a bite between bars), and by about 11:20 p.m. I’m drunk. It’s obvious that I’m drunk because, like a typical drunk person, I decide I haven’t had enough to drink — despite assurances from my girlfriend that I’ve had plenty. To me, this is the perfect indicator of a true night out. For some bizarre reason, drunk people crave more alcohol, and particularly shots. So in true drunken fashion, I decide to take another shot of Fireball at 11:45 p.m., just to be sure. And then apparently at 12:38 a.m. I decide to be really sure, and I take another shot of Fireball. OK, extra-medium hammered achieved.

My protocol tracker for the night. Notice the handwriting getting a little sketchy at the end. That word in the bottom-right corner is “sleep”…with “sleep” written again over it, because somehow that would make it more legible.

So I’m drunk in my apartment on a Wednesday. My girlfriend made me sleep on the couch to make sure I didn’t wet the bed in the middle of the night (a little over the top in my opinion, but who am I to argue in such a state).

The next morning, I woke up (still on the couch, and dry as a bone…nailed it) and did a systems check. Normally, I would expect to feel about like this:

But all I felt was a mild headache and some grogginess. I slept in a bit, then got up, had some cereal and coffee, and was 100% by about 10 a.m. Now that’s a good birthday present!

Of course, a single data point in no way proves that the product works. The best I can say is that it wasn’t a total failure after experiment No. 1. All I can really conclude is that the results of my first experience are consistent with the hypothesis that my invention will reduce or prevent a hangover.

To prove that hypothesis convincingly, a lot more data is needed!

The good news is that this data is pretty fun to collect. Since this first experiment, I’ve gone out and tried to prove (or disprove) my hypothesis in several interesting ways, including having friends try it and tell me how they felt; throwing an open-bar party (with a homemade drink-roulette wheel, no less) and getting feedback the next day; and even handing out over a thousand samples to people over the span of months! I’m excited to describe this second wave of results in a future post, but I can say that so far, the results are still consistent with the hypothesis that my hangover product works.

Let the adventure continue! More to come…