Seminar - “Engineering Anticancer Bacterial Therapies”, by Professor Neil Forbes, Department of Chemical Engineering,University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
ABSTRACT: Engineered bacteria have the potential to overcome the limitations that cause common cancer therapies to fail. Synthetic biology is playing a critical role in the creation of these therapies. We have shown that bacteria, specifically Salmonella, have three main qualities that enable them to overcome the limitations of chemotherapy. Bacteria 1) preferentially target tumors, 2) penetrate tissue, and 3) can kill non-mitotic cells.