JUST IN: Scientists built bacteria that EATS cancer from the inside out.
The future of cancer treatment isn't a drug. It's a living organism that devours tumors from the inside.
Here's how it works:
Solid tumors have a dead center. No oxygen. No blood flow. Just dead cells and nutrients sitting there.
Most cancer drugs can't survive in that environment. They get blocked. They break down. They never reach the core where the tumor is most protected.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo found something that THRIVES there.
It's called Clostridium sporogenes. A bacteria found in soil that loves oxygen-free environments.
Researchers send spores directly into the tumor:
1. The bacteria wakes up in the dead, oxygen-free center
2. It starts consuming nutrients and growing
3. It multiplies and COLONIZES the space
4. It eats the tumor from the inside out
Then they added something called quorum sensing. Bacteria communicate through chemical signals. When enough bacteria pile up INSIDE the tumor, those signals flip on the oxygen-tolerance gene.
This means the bacteria won't activate in your bloodstream. It only activates inside the tumor, where it belongs.
Think about what that means.
Chemo hits everything. Good cells. Bad cells. Your hair. Your gut. Your immune system. The cancer suffers, but so does the rest of your body.
This is different.
This is a PRECISION weapon. A living, self-regulating machine that targets only the tumor's environment and ignores healthy tissue.
The team is now heading into preclinical trials and testing it on real tumors.
We are watching history happen.
A research team led by the University of Waterloo is developing a novel tool to treat cancer by engineering hungry bacteria to literally eat tumours from the inside out. “Bacteria spores enter the tumour, finding an environment where there are lots of nutrients and no oxygen, which this organism prefers, and so it starts eating those nutrients and growing in size,” said Dr.
OP is right about the gene turning on, but it still seems a bit under-explained.
"the researchers first added a gene to the organism from a related bacterium that can better tolerate oxygen, enabling it to live longer near the outside of a targeted tumour."
"They then found a way to activate the oxygen-resistant gene at just the right time – critical to preventing bacteria from inadvertently growing in oxygen-rich places such as the bloodstream"
https://uwaterloo.ca/news/media/beating-cancer-eating-cancer
I can see why they the gene isn't necessary, at first - the center of the tumor doesn't contain oxygen.
And I can see why they the gene becomes necessary, the edges of the tumor do contain oxygen.
So that switch does keeps the bacteria from wandering where they shouldn't, at least at first.
Not clear to me what stops the bacteria from going for a wander once there are lots of them, but at least they'll destroy the tumor before that that happens. I guess.
Perhaps the article has it flipped, except that doesn't make sense either - it would allow the bacteria to go places they shouldn't as long as there aren't too many of them.
A research team led by the University of Waterloo is developing a novel tool to treat cancer by engineering hungry bacteria to literally eat tumours from the inside out. “Bacteria spores enter the tumour, finding an environment where there are lots of nutrients and no oxygen, which this organism prefers, and so it starts eating those nutrients and growing in size,” said Dr.
Andrew Lokenauth
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