Making gluten-free, sorghum-based beers easier to brew and enjoy

Beer is usually made from barley, leaving those with a gluten allergy unable to enjoy. Sorghum could be an alternative, but complex preparation steps hamper its adoption. A team reporting in ACS’ Journal of Proteome Research has uncovered an enzyme that could improve sorghum-based beers’ future.

Danforth Center and Salk plant researchers launch collaboration to breed carbon-capturing sorghum

Researchers at the Salk Institute’s Harnessing Plants Initiative have established a five-year, $6.2 million collaboration with Dr. Nadia Shakoor and her team at the Danforth Center to identify and develop sorghum plants that can better capture and store atmospheric carbon.

New Research Reveals Infertile Spikelets Contribute To Yield In Sorghum And Related Grasses

The researchers used radioactive and stable isotopes of carbon, RNA-seq of metabolically important enzymes, and immunolocalization of Rubisco to show that the sterile spikelet collects carbon from the air and carries out photosynthesis while the awn does not.