Yogurt drink instead of a colonoscopy? CRISPR bacteria are tested

Dan Worthley, a gastroenterologist and most cancers scientist at Colonoscopy Clinic in Brisbane, Australia, does hundreds of colonoscopies a yr, searching for and destroying precancerous polyps. It’s a virtually surefire approach to forestall colorectal most cancers, however an disagreeable expertise for sufferers. The long run, Worthley hopes, can be a lot much less onerous — and he’s creating a expertise that, if it really works in the future, would possibly make the expertise extra of a bit of cake.

Or, moderately, a cup of yogurt — containing engineered micro organism that may detect and ship a therapy for colorectal polyps or most cancers. Worthley and colleagues on the College of California, San Diego, and the College of Adelaide revealed ends in Science on Thursday that present they’re one step nearer to that far-off dream. Of their paper, the researchers present a proof-of-concept engineered bacterium that may detect most cancers DNA within the guts of mice and react to it by turning on sure mobile circuitry.

“I believe it’s actually cool. It introduces a brand new idea for the way you need to use cells as a sensor for one thing taking place inside different cells,” mentioned Mikhail Shapiro, a chemical and medical engineer on the California Institute of Expertise who didn’t work on the examine. “That may flip a change inside these cells. On this case, it’s used for diagnostic output, however in precept it might be used for different issues.”