Overview
- University of Waterloo researchers are developing Clostridium sporogenes to colonize oxygen‑free tumor cores and degrade solid cancers from the inside.
- The team previously increased the bacterium’s oxygen tolerance by adding a gene from a related species, helping it persist near tumor margins.
- A separate study built a heterologous quorum‑sensing circuit in C. sporogenes that was validated using green fluorescent protein as a readout.
- Researchers now plan to combine the oxygen‑tolerance trait with the quorum‑sensing timing control in a single strain for evaluation in pre‑clinical tumor models.
- Safety remains a central constraint, as premature activation of oxygen tolerance could enable growth in oxygen‑rich tissues, a risk the population‑dependent switch is intended to mitigate.