Bugs on patrol

摘要

Matthew wook change has opened an academy for assassins. His trainees are deadly. By rewiring the genes of the common gut bacterium Escherichia coli, Chang has created a killer that can detect, chase down and destroy microbes that make us sick. His primary target is Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that seizes any chance to infect people with weak immune systems. It can wreak havoc in hospital wards, in the lungs of those with cystic fibrosis, and in the guts of premature babies. In 2013, Chang put his assassins through their paces in a lab flask. They have since been hanging out in the guts of mice, keeping them safe. "We're about to wrap up animal studies," he says. "The survival rate of the mice was significantly increased." He is now training up assassins for other targets. Chang, a biochemist at the National University of Singapore, is just one of a growing club of scientists who are tweaking our microbiome - the vast community of microbes that live in or on our bodies - in pursuit of better health. Armed with the tools of synthetic biology, they are stuff ing bacteria with circuitry composed of new combinations of genes, turning them into precision-targeted micro-drones designed to detect and fix specific problems.