Professor Meng Dong and his laboratory have created a probiotic that can metabolize alcohol quickly and maybe prevent some of the adverse effects of alcohol consumption. The scientists cloned a highly active human alcohol dehydrogenase gene (ADH1B) into Lactococcus lactis. ADH1B is responsible for detoxifying ethyl alcohol (it is a poison after all). The engineered bacterium was fed to mice along with alcohol. The researchers found that mice became less impaired and had less alcohol-related damage.
So I have two questions. One, how do you tell if a mouse is drunk? The answer is you place them on their backs. Mice under the influence will not be able to get off their backs as easily as mice that have their full faculties. Two, why make this probiotic? An easy way to avoid drunkenness is not to drink. However, the work does show the power we now have to manipulate the microbiome and that these types of modifications can work.