Leading PI: Oskar Staufer (INM) & Shriskrishnan Sankaran (INM)
Living therapeutic materials (LTMs) have the potential to enhance sensing, dosing, and drug production directly at disease sites. A key focus is developing secure encapsulation methods to control the exposure of engineered microbes to the host, ensuring safety and therapeutic efficacy. Hydrogel-based encapsulation is popular but can rupture due to bacterial colony growth. To address this risk this project aims to develop colloidosomes as a safe encapsulation technology for living therapeutic materials, supporting genetically engineered functions for immunotherapy. The initial focus will be on evaluating the encapsulation efficiency, safety, and viability of bacteria engineered to detect inflammation markers related to skin inflammation or inflammatory bowel diseases. Silica-based colloidosomes will be adapted for bacterial entrapment. They allow for the integration of water-soluble compounds and maintain bacterial entrapment while being permeable to macromolecules.
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