Microscopic Engineers: Reprogramming Your Brain Through Your Gut
When your city has an earthquake, you hire engineers to fix it. When your city needs to build more buildings, you hire architects to plan it. But when you have a dysfunctional gut microbiome and are at risk of cognitive diseases, what do you do? Well, the latest advances in technology and science have given rise to the field of bioengineering: engineering but for molecules and medicine. Now, with microbe engineering, new ways of optimizing your gut—and thus your brain—are possible.
The Microbiome: Your Inner City
Just like a city, your gut contains a sophisticated microbial community that makes many of the same molecules your brain relies on to function. For instance, roughly 90% of your body’s serotonin (a neurotransmitter associated with mood and digestion) is made in the gut. Other microbes also make GABA, which relaxes your nervous system, and short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) to fight off inflammation which helps out your brain. So, what if we could engineer a way to increase these helpful molecules?
The New Tiny Engineers In Town
Well, you’re in luck. Now, just like fixing a crack, new bioengineered microbiome therapies have emerged to improve your gut. One new therapy involves genetically modifying a bacteria to produce extra GABA, which has been observed to reduce anxiety and improve sleep quality. Another breakthrough used bioengineered E. coli Nissle to synthesize serotonin in the colon. This improved both mood and gut motility in a clinical trial done on mice. More serotonin = Better life. Finally, the practice of fecal microbiota transplantation, which transfers the microbiota of a healthy person to an unhealthy one, is showing great efficacy and safety in recent studies.
The benefits don’t just stop here. These therapies can be key players in fighting chronic diseases such as IBS-depression and Alzheimer’s. When your gut microbiome is dysregulated, it can contribute to many different cognitive diseases which you can learn more about on our ABioMe website. By potentially restoring it through these microscopic engineers, the cracks in the gut-brain axis can be fixed.
When Can I Hire One Of These Guys?
While more research and human trials are needed to fully explore these therapies, we’re only just scratching the surface of what engineered microbes have to offer the brain. From lifting mood to potentially preventing neurodegenerative diseases, these in vivo therapies are redefining what medicine can be. And although we’re still quite some steps off from those therapies being in every doctor’s office, the science is coming along swiftly. So next time you’re mulling over brain health, look to your gut. Because in the future, the ultimate engineer might just be a bacterium.