Team:Caltech

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The big idea

We aim to engineer a probiotic bacterium to improve its medical applications. Our work focuses on four main areas: (1) pathogen defense, either by expression of pathogen-specific bacteriophage or by targeted bursts of reactive oxygen species; (2) vitamin over-expression and delivery; (3) treatment of lactose intolerance, by preferentially metabolizing lactose and funneling it to vitamin production; and (4) regulation of these three treatment functions to produce subpopulations specialized for each function.

Why engineer gut microbes?

The large intestine: an ideal bioreactor

Probiotic bacteria and other natural examples

Nissle 1917: Probiotic, commercially available E. coli

For more details, please see our project page.