
Genetically modified microbes alert the immune system to cancer in mice - sky_nox
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/03/science/cancer-bacteria-immune-system.html
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sitharus
This seems like a game-changing system, certainly for some tumours. I do
wonder about the bacteria entering the wider environment though, but given
it's a common bacteria I guess there's plenty of existing research in to that.

Makes me think of the studies showing how much of an effect your gut bacteria
have on your health. Perhaps this could be harnessed to treat disease without
the sledgehammers that are antibiotics.

Unfortunately I'm a software developer, not a biologist, so I know nothing
about this. I'm sure smarter people are already working on it.

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pythonwutang
> At some point in the future, we will use programmable bacteria for treatment

Will bacteria be “programmable” in the same way that a computer is?

Hard to believe so maybe that’s not the right word for it.

If it will be then we will, in a way, be monkey patching natural selection’s
code.

Testing would also be a pain!

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monocasa
> Will bacteria be “programmable” in the same way that a computer is?

> Hard to believe so maybe that’s not the right word for it.

They already are.

[https://media.ccc.de/v/24c3-2329-en-
change_me](https://media.ccc.de/v/24c3-2329-en-change_me)

That's a video from 2007 talking about how high school student can program
bacteria. It's gotten a couple orders of magnitude easier and cheaper in the
past decade since that talk.

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sddfd
In before "genetically modified microbes induce auto immune disease in cancer
patients".

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dang
" _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A
good critical comment teaches us something._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Especially please don't do this when a thread is new. Threads are remarkably
sensitive to initial conditions, and this is a kind of defacement.

