AUGUST 4, 2023
Stephen Lamb is changing how you drink with ZBiotics
SHACK15 member Stephen Lamb oversees the operational, regulatory, and financial aspects of ZBiotics, which uses genetic engineering to build products that improve everyday living in ways people can experience for themselves. Stephen holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, an MBA from the Wharton School, and a bachelor’s degree in political economy from Princeton. Prior to ZBiotics, Stephen's career focused on corporate real estate and new market entry for companies like Ben & Jerry's, Pfizer, and Unilever. Stephen spoke with the SHACK15 Journal about ZBiotics and the benefits of probiotics in our everyday lives.
SHACK15: Can you tell us about your involvement with ZBiotics and about the brand?
Lamb: ZBiotics creates genetically engineered probiotics. That means we take regular probiotic bacteria you likely eat every day and make small edits to their DNA to make them do something unique and functional for your body. In the case of our first product – the Pre-Alcohol Probiotic we brought to SHACK15’s event a few weeks ago – that special function is to break down an unwanted byproduct of alcohol. So by taking this probiotic when you start drinking, you set your body up to feel better the next day. Our goal now is to take that same core tech and create other engineered probiotics with it – each with its own unique function.
As for my involvement, I’m COO and one of the co-founders of ZBiotics. My role was essentially to be the business/commercial lead when I joined up with my co-founder Zack Abbott, who’s a microbiologist and the inventor of our core technology. Zack actually has a great head for startups, team-building, and the customer experience, so I’m not sure how much help he actually needed. Since we started, though, I’ve led operations and at some point been deeply involved in practically every part of the business besides research and development.
SHACK15: Is ZBiotics the end of the hangover as we know it?
Lamb: That would be amazing. But we like to say that ZBiotics is science – not science fiction.
Drinking alcohol creates a host of issues that differ from situation to situation and person to person. ZBiotics is focused on just one thing: a key byproduct called acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is pretty nasty stuff, and there’s a lot of literature out there about how it impacts your body. Our probiotic produces an enzyme that breaks it down. It’s actually the same type of enzyme your liver produces, but produced in your gut, where acetaldehyde tends to accumulate.
By drinking ZBiotics before drinking alcohol, you’re essentially improving your body’s ability to break down acetaldehyde. But alcohol is doing other stuff to your body as well. For example, the molecule ethanol – which creates feelings of intoxication – causes other issues like poor sleep. So if I’m drinking, I might wake up feeling groggy and a bit slower than normal – and that’s going to happen regardless of whether or not I have ZBiotics beforehand. ZBiotics is there for the harder stuff.
SHACK15: What motivated you to get involved in health and wellness and tell us about your background.
Lamb: What got me excited about ZBiotics was the potential of the technology. What we’re fundamentally talking about here is the ability to give your body a new biological function it didn’t have before. But instead of engineering your body directly, which is risky and creates ethical questions that humanity isn’t ready for yet, we’re engineering a probiotic to give you that function indirectly. That core idea opens up a world of possibilities for improving how we live and how our bodies function.
That was especially compelling to me when thinking about modern life and the toll it takes on our bodies. We do all sorts of things day-to-day that aren’t great for us physically, but that are core to who we are culturally, professionally, and socially. Drinking alcohol is just one example. What we eat, how we sleep, what we’re exposed to in our environment, and how we work are all challenges our bodies aren’t prepared for. The idea of helping our bodies do each of these things a bit better – and helping us all live a bit healthier day-to-day – is super compelling to me.
As to my background, it’s pretty eclectic – but I’ve always been interested in food and food systems. My first job out of college was actually working on my family’s avocado and lemon farm in Camarillo, California. From there I spent a few years living in Brazil, helping companies like Ben & Jerry’s, Unilever, and Pfizer manage their Latin American real estate – everything from factories and warehouses to offices and retail. From there I went to graduate school and got a JD/MBA, with the original intent to become a corporate attorney and start a company later in life. But during school I met Zack, and I was so excited about the idea that I decided to join up with him right away.
SHACK15: What are your long term goals for ZBiotics and where can the product be found currently?
Lamb: Our long-term goals include building more products. Our goal for each is to materially improve daily life using the same core technology: genetically engineered probiotics. We’re actually planning on launching our second product early next year. We can’t say what it is yet, but we’re very excited and will be announcing it soon!
As far as the Pre-Alcohol product goes, we sell it direct-to-consumer at zbiotics.com and that is still the best place to get it. In the future we’re going to be exploring retail and international distribution (we’re still US-only). We’ve had lots of interest in both in-person access and availability abroad. We’re excited to make that happen.
SHACK15: What's your favorite cocktail to drink following a ZBiotics shot?
Lamb: My favorite cocktail is a Gold Rush. But what I’m feeling varies drastically with the situation. Just one example: I’m generally not a martini drinker, but just last week I actually had (and enjoyed) one. Now that’s a cocktail that demands ZBiotics beforehand.