Engineered bacteria that live in tumours and manufacture drugs there
Some harmless bacteria naturally grow in the low-oxygen core of tumours. Engineering them to produce immune-activating drugs turns them into tiny factories inside the tumour.
Attenuated Salmonella and E. coli Nissle strains colonise hypoxic tumour cores selectively, and synthetic biology allows quorum-controlled payload release of STING agonists, CD47 nanobodies or cytokines. Early human experience with intratumoural bacterial therapy exists, and BCG in bladder cancer is a century-old proof that live bacteria can drive anti-tumour immunity. Safety, biocontainment and manufacturing are the real hurdles.
- Cold tumours and the immunosuppressive microenvironment · Most tumours keep the immune system out or asleep, so immunotherapy helps only a minority.
- The undruggable drivers · The proteins that drive most cancers, such as MYC, mutant p53 and most RAS variants, still have no good drug.
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