Can Your Body’s Bacteria Manufacture Medicine?

Israeli researchers have developed an innovative method that enables medicine to be manufactured within the body itself.

The pioneering approach, not yet tested on humans, uses live, harmless bacteria that act like tiny factories, producing therapeutic proteins inside the body, exactly where they are needed.

“We are accustomed to thinking that to introduce a drug into the body, it must be manufactured in a factory and then delivered via a capsule or an injection,” said Prof. Boaz Mizrahi of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s lab for biomaterials in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering.

“This could be a turning point in the world of pharmaceuticals, and a new paradigm for both drug production and consumption,” he added.

Mizrahi recently spoke with The Times of Israel in a joint interview with Dr. Adi Gross, the study’s lead researcher.

Learn more about the production of these targeted therapeutic proteins at timesofisrael.com.