Programming an Abundant Human Gut Microbe

July 27, 2015

(Bio IT World) – At the MIT Synthetic Biology Center, Timothy Lu is a specialist in “genetic circuits,” reengineering bacteria to add new functions that can be controlled with environmental cues. Building on in-depth knowledge of the genomes of model organisms like E. coli, whose DNA architecture has been extensively studied for decades, Lu and his colleagues have cut and pasted inducible promoters to attach them to new genes ? like moving a battery on a circuit board to hook it to a new servo or lightbulb. When given the right signals, these engineered E. coli can perform tasks like creating random stretches of DNA as a primitive memory system, or spinning useful synthetic fibers.