Recent Pembroke Graduate Brianna Stubbs Launches New Product at the Cutting Edge of Biohacking Research

A ketone drink which  alumna Brianna Stubbs (2009, DPhil Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics) worked on during her degree has now launched. Carbohydrates and fats are sources of energy that we are familiar with, but ketones are another natural source of energy. Ketones are produced by our body when it is pushed to its limits. The drink is the world’s first commercial ketone ester, marketed as a “superfuel for athletes”.

This promotional video states that the drink enables elite athletes to extend aerobic performance by over 2%, and that a Tour de France cyclist can travel an extra 400 metres in a 30-minute time trial. The potential effect of ketones for a range of things is still under investigation, from obesity to inflammation and aging, the list goes on.

The ketone ester has been licensed exclusively to San Francisco based start-up HVMN Inc, by University of Oxford spinout company TΔS® Ltd. The HVMN™ Ketone stems from a research partnership between the University of Oxford, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

In addition to this recent success, Brianna has published two papers from her thesis: ‘On the Metabolism of Exogenous Ketones in Humans’ in Frontiers in Physiology: Clinical and Translational Physiology and ‘A Ketone Ester Drink Lowers Human Ghrelin and Appetite’ in Obesity: A Research Journal.

Read more about the ketone drink launch in this Business Insider article.