• Question: do you think it would be possible to genetically engineer a bacterium, a virus or create a nano-machine to deal with cancer and other degenerative diseases?

    Asked by 13AJACHI to Eleni, Hannah, Jenny, Oli, Steven on 10 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Oliver Charity

      Oliver Charity answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      Hi 13AJACHI,

      Absolutely, and there is a lot of research into such technology. Some promising therapies for cancer include using attenuated Salmonella to invoke an immune response, using bacteriophage as nanomachines for carriers of cargo to deliver to cells, and using Adenoviruses to give cancer fighting genes to cancer cells (mostly genes coding for p53, which is a really neat multi-tasking protein that regulates DNA transcription and the cell cycle).

      In terms of other degenerative diseases, they all have very different causes. For example parkinsons and alzhiemers are theoretically caused by ‘infectious’ proteins, which change the shape of proteins similar to them when they come into contact with each other.

      Oli

    • Photo: Hannah Bolt

      Hannah Bolt answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      Hi 13AJACHI,

      Yes, it is definitely possible! Oli has mentioned some research into using bacteria and viruses to help fight cancer.

      Using genetically modified organisms (called GMOs) to help us in the fight against diseases has also been used in other ways. Several diseases are transmitted by the bite of a mosquito (for example, malaria, zika virus and dengue fever). Scientists have created genetically modified mosquitos that have been altered so that their offspring die before they are able to reproduce and are now releasing them into the wild as a trial (places like Brazil, Florida and the Cayman Islands). Overall, this should reduce the population of mosquitos over time to help reduce the transmission of these diseases. However, this does have significant possible effects to the ecosystem, so we don’t know whether the trials will be successful and whether larger scale release of GMO parasites will be allowed in the future.

      Hannah

    • Photo: Steven Street

      Steven Street answered on 13 Nov 2016:

      Hi 13AJACHI,

      Excellent question! I agree with the others, this is absolutely possible!

      As the others have mentioned, there are multiple ways you could think about doing this, and it’s quite an active area of research with some promising results!

      It’s not really my area of expertise though as I’m a synthetic organic chemist, which means I’m used to building molecules as opposed to organisms!

      Regarding the nano-machines though, our group work with nanomaterials such as ‘quantum dots’ and ‘carbon dots’ which are basically fluorescent nanoparticles with interesting properties. One thing our group has shown is that if you attach lactose (a simple sugar) to the quantum dots, then they are taken inside cells, and localize to certain locations. We have shown that if you add a second molecule, then they are still taken into cells but the localisation can change, so these nanoparticles could be used as drug delivery vehicles!

      Steve

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