How scientists are harnessing the power of engineered living materials

Imagine how nice it would be if friendly bacteria could be sent to a part of your body to produce a therapeutic molecule to cure a disease. This may sound like science fiction, but it is precisely what Shrikrishnan Sankaran is working on. If microbes that a drug delivers are sent directly to the body, they can bypass wasteful processes and cut down on resources, says the Head of Bioprogrammable Materials at the Leibniz Institute for New Materials in the south-western German city of Saarbrucken.

For a drug to be produced externally, one would need to grow bacteria in bioreactors, extract protein from them, purify it, and store it in extremely low temperatures, before administering it as a drug. Each of these steps involves time and resources. But, Sankaran explains, by sending the microbes directly to an affected part inside the body, "we can minimise wastage; we can minimise energy usage."