Team:ETH Zurich/HP/Gold
HUMAN PRACTICES - GOLD
Safety
When we met with gastroenterologist Prof. Rogler it became clear that the way we imagined our system would not be feasible in clinical trials.
The first issue with our system is, that the host organism,E. coli is not suitable for use in IBD patients.E. coli lipopolysaccharides are known to increase inflammation in certain types of IBD. This would pose a safety hazard to the patient ingesting our bacteria, next to falsifying our measurment of our inflammation marker, nitric oxide.
Prof. Rogler suggested that we chose Lactobacillus acidophilus as a host organism, as this species is already used as a probiotic for the treatment of IBD.
Another issue with our system is that it is plasmid based. Due to the possibility of these plasmids, carrying antibiotic resistances, being transferred to other species and providing other species with antibiotic resistances. A solution would be to insert the system into the genome of our host organism.
The full conversation touched more topics than just safety. Please visit our human practices for more details.
Bacterial metabolites
In a conversation with Prof. Lacroix we discussed the role of certain molecules in IBD pathogenesis. We decided that for our purposes, the bacterial metabolite lactate would be the best alternative to sense microbiome markers.
We implemented a lactate system that replaces our AHL system. The interesting part behind lactate is that, currently it is not possible to measure lactate levels in the gut through fecal samples. Therefore our Pavlov's coli could help shine a light o the role of lactate in IBD pathogenesis.
Please visit our human practices for more details.
Thanks to the sponsors that supported our project:
