Seminar: Engineering Bacteria as Living Drug Delivery Systems

Abstract: Abstract: Engineered living cells as therapeutic agents are transforming modern medicine. An emerging focus is tumor-colonizing bacteria, where systemically delivered bacteria have been demonstrated to selectively grow within solid tumors. This natural tropism to tumors presents a unique opportunity to engineer bacteria as programmable drug delivery vehicles to regions inaccessible with existing chemo- and immuno-therapeutics. In this talk, I will describe our recent efforts to enhance bacterial cancer therapies through synthetic biology. I will focus on strategies to address several key challenges for clinical translation, including bacterial delivery, therapeutic identification, and off-target effects. Our multidisciplinary approach, spanning from gene circuit design to in vitro and in vivo models, advances bacteria as next-generation drug carriers capable of sensing and responding to diseases within the body.