Genetic engineering: Bacteria could be modified to heal us from inside our cells
Billions of years in the past, micro organism started dwelling inside different cells and finishing up important features. Genetic engineering might create new forms of these ‘endosymbionts’
Well being
27 October 2021
Colored scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of Bacillus subtilis STEVE LOWRY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Micro organism have been genetically engineered to enter and dwell inside mouse immune cells, the place they launched proteins that altered the behaviour of these cells. The work is a primary step in the direction of creating “synthetic endosymbionts” that would dwell inside some human physique cells and do every thing from guiding the regeneration of broken tissues to treating most cancers.
“That’s the imaginative and prescient in the long term,” says Christopher Contag at Michigan State College.
A number of different teams are additionally creating synthetic endosymbionts, which they are saying might enable us …