Video: Bacteria Transformed Into Living, Blinking Clocks Could Provide Precisely Timed Drug Delivery
Simply put, pills are stupid. They don't know what's going on in your body when you take them, they don't know the optimal time to release their medication, and they certainly can't vary their own dosage levels on the fly. But thanks to the blinking E. coli created by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, that's all about to change. The UCSD researchers have created a mechanism for cyclical gene expression in bacteria that can then be propagated throughout an entire bacterial colony like a wave. In the video above, the bacteria are reading the gene for a fluorescent dye. A genetic circuit with a built-in time delay keeps the blinking at a regular rate, and inter-bacterium communication synchronizes the blinking. But swap out the dye gene for one that makes drugs, and all of a sudden you get a yogurt that releases exact medication dosages from within...