{"id":156344,"date":"2023-01-26T15:30:18","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T21:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/double-agents-engineered-bacteria-tackle-pathogenic-biofilms-in-mice"},"modified":"2023-01-26T15:30:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-26T21:30:18","slug":"double-agents-engineered-bacteria-tackle-pathogenic-biofilms-in-mice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/double-agents-engineered-bacteria-tackle-pathogenic-biofilms-in-mice","title":{"rendered":"Double Agents: Engineered Bacteria Tackle Pathogenic Biofilms in Mice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/double-agents-engineered-bacteria-tackle-pathogenic-biofilms-in-mice.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>ABOVE: \u00a9 ISTOCK.COM, DR_MICROBE<\/p>\n<p><em>Mycoplasma pneumoniae<\/em> are tiny bacteria typically known to cause <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/pneumonia\/atypical\/mycoplasma\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">lung infections<\/a>. But now, a group of scientists have turned them into double agents. Genetically engineered <em>Mycoplasma<\/em> helped break down biofilms of another pathogenic microbe, <em>Pseudomonas aeruginosa<\/em>, in a mouse model of ventilator-associated pneumonia and on tube samples taken from human patients, the team reported January 19 in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41587-022-01584-9\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Nature Biotechnology<\/em><\/a>. It is one of the first times that scientists have used live bacteria to treat a lung disease, and is the first therapeutic use of <em>Mycoplasma<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis approach is really powerful,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.synlogictx.com\/our-people\/leadership\/#:~:text=READ%20MORE-, DAVID%20HAVA%2C%20PHD,-CHIEF%20SCIENTIFIC%20OFFICER\" target=\"_blank\">Dave Hava<\/a>, a microbiologist who wasn\u2019t involved in the research, but who works at a company called Synlogic that develops live bacteria therapeutics for gut issues. \u201cIt offers the chance to target diseases and mechanisms that you can\u2019t do with conventional therapies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ABOVE: \u00a9 ISTOCK.COM, DR_MICROBE Mycoplasma pneumoniae are tiny bacteria typically known to cause lung infections. But now, a group of scientists have turned them into double agents. Genetically engineered Mycoplasma helped break down biofilms of another pathogenic microbe, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in a mouse model of ventilator-associated pneumonia and on tube samples taken from human patients, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}