Jeffrey Tabor

Synthetic biologists at Rice University are working to create bacterial sensors that can detect different kinds of inflammation associated with such disorders as irritable bowel, Crohn’s and colon cancer. To do this they create recombinant plasmids that are taken up in E. coli cells. The engineered cells detect inflammatory proteins, such as histidine kinase, which then is analyzed (apparently) by optogenetic methods upon the gut waste. It’s actually the strength of the biological response rather than a concentration of chemicals being measured. MORE

Image Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University and MDTMag.com