Living medicine explained

See also: Biological therapy for inflammatory bowel disease and Biologics for immunosuppression.

A living medicine is a type of biologic that consists of a living organism that is used to treat a disease. This usually takes the form of a cell (animal, bacterial, or fungal) or a virus that has been genetically engineered to possess therapeutic properties that is injected into a patient.[1] [2] Perhaps the oldest use of a living medicine is the use of leeches for bloodletting, though living medicines have advanced tremendously since that time.

Examples of living medicines include cellular therapeutics (including immunotherapeutics), phage therapeutics, and bacterial therapeutics, a subset of the latter being probiotics.

Development of living medicines

Development of living medicines is an extremely active research area in the fields of synthetic biology and microbiology.[3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] Currently, there is a large focus on: 1) identifying microbes that naturally produce therapeutic effects (for example, probiotic bacteria), and 2) genetically programming organisms to produce therapeutic effects.[12] [13] [14]

Applications

Cancer therapy

There is tremendous interest in using bacteria as a therapy to treat tumors. In particular, tumor-homing bacteria that thrive in hypoxic environments are particularly attractive for this purpose, as they will tend to migrate to, invade (through the leaky vasculature in the tumor microenvironment) and colonize tumors. This property tends to increase their residence time in the tumor, giving them longer to exert their therapeutic effects, in contrast to other bacteria that would be quickly cleared by the immune system.[15] [16] [17] [18]

Notes and References

  1. News: Sample . Ian . 16 January 2019 . 'Living medicine' helps make toxic ammonia breakthrough . 5 April 2020 . The Guardian.
  2. Web site: Engineering Living Medicines for Chronic Diseases SBE Society for Biological Engineering . www.aiche.org.
  3. Weber. Wilfried. Fussenegger. Martin. January 2012. Emerging biomedical applications of synthetic biology. Nature Reviews Genetics. en. 13. 1. 21–35. 10.1038/nrg3094. 1471-0056. 7097403. 22124480.
  4. Fischbach. M. A.. Bluestone. J. A.. Lim. W. A.. 2013-04-03. Cell-Based Therapeutics: The Next Pillar of Medicine. Science Translational Medicine. en. 5. 179. 179ps7. 10.1126/scitranslmed.3005568. 1946-6234. 3772767. 23552369.
  5. Kitada. Tasuku. DiAndreth. Breanna. Teague. Brian. Weiss. Ron. 2018-02-09. Programming gene and engineered-cell therapies with synthetic biology. Science. en. 359. 6376. eaad1067. 10.1126/science.aad1067. 29439214. 7643872 . 0036-8075. free.
  6. News: McCarty . Niko . Why 2018 Was the Year of 'Living' Medicine . 5 April 2020 . Medium . 18 December 2018 . en.
  7. News: Kelly . Jason . The Era of Living Medicines . 5 April 2020 . Ginkgo Bioworks . 12 June 2019.
  8. News: ServiceFeb. 18 . Robert F. . From 'living' cement to medicine-delivering biofilms, biologists remake the material world . 5 April 2020 . AAAS . 18 February 2020 . en.
  9. Kurtz. Caroline B.. Millet. Yves A.. Puurunen. Marja K.. Perreault. Mylène. Charbonneau. Mark R.. Isabella. Vincent M.. Kotula. Jonathan W.. Antipov. Eugene. Dagon. Yossi. Denney. William S.. Wagner. David A.. 2019-01-16. An engineered E. coli Nissle improves hyperammonemia and survival in mice and shows dose-dependent exposure in healthy humans. Science Translational Medicine. en. 11. 475. eaau7975. 10.1126/scitranslmed.aau7975. 30651324. 58031579. 1946-6234. free.
  10. Charbonneau. Mark R.. Isabella. Vincent M.. Li. Ning. Kurtz. Caroline B.. 2020-04-08. Developing a new class of engineered live bacterial therapeutics to treat human diseases. Nature Communications. en. 11. 1. 1738. 10.1038/s41467-020-15508-1. 32269218. 7142098. 2020NatCo..11.1738C . 2041-1723. free.
  11. News: Gene Circuits Empower Next-Generation Cell and Gene Therapies . 5 April 2020 . GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News . 1 February 2020.
  12. News: Why now is the time for programmable living medicines: insights from Jim Collins, Aoife Brennan, and Jason Kelly . 5 April 2020 . SynBioBeta . 2 April 2019.
  13. News: Costa . Kevin . Living medicines: Ginkgo's machine to disrupt the pharma industry . 5 April 2020 . SynBioBeta . 20 February 2019.
  14. Gurbatri . Candice R. . Arpaia . Nicholas . Danino . Tal . Engineering bacteria as interactive cancer therapies . Science . 25 November 2022 . 378 . 6622 . 858–864 . 10.1126/science.add9667. 36423303 . 2022Sci...378..858G . 253839557 . 10584033 .
  15. Sieow . Brendan Fu-Long . Wun . Kwok Soon . Yong . Wei Peng . Hwang . In Young . Chang . Matthew Wook . Tweak to Treat: Reprograming Bacteria for Cancer Treatment . Trends in Cancer . December 2020 . 7 . 5 . 447–464 . 10.1016/j.trecan.2020.11.004 . 33303401 . 2405-8033. free .
  16. Duong. Mai Thi-Quynh. Qin. Yeshan. You. Sung-Hwan. Min. Jung-Joon. 2019-12-11. Bacteria-cancer interactions: bacteria-based cancer therapy. Experimental & Molecular Medicine. en. 51. 12. 1–15. 10.1038/s12276-019-0297-0. 2092-6413. 6906302. 31827064.
  17. Sedighi. Mansour. Zahedi Bialvaei. Abed. Hamblin. Michael R.. Ohadi. Elnaz. Asadi. Arezoo. Halajzadeh. Masoumeh. Lohrasbi. Vahid. Mohammadzadeh. Nima. Amiriani. Taghi. Krutova. Marcela. Amini. Abolfazl. 2019-04-05. Therapeutic bacteria to combat cancer; current advances, challenges, and opportunities. Cancer Medicine. 8. 6. en. 3167–3181. 10.1002/cam4.2148. 2045-7634. 6558487. 30950210.
  18. Song. Shiyu. Vuai. Miza S.. Zhong. Mintao. 2018-03-15. The role of bacteria in cancer therapy – enemies in the past, but allies at present. Infectious Agents and Cancer. en. 13. 1. 9. 10.1186/s13027-018-0180-y. 1750-9378. 5856380. 29568324 . free .

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