Synthetic Immune System?

Imagine taking a drop of your blood, dripping it into a bowl and having it travel through a network of vessels to different colonies of yeast. Each colony would act as an external biosensor for your body detecting a variety of deficiencies and possible anomalies that could be present. It is personalized medicine to the extreme, customized to your body and lifestyle. For example, if you had anaemia the yeast would monitor your iron levels in your blood and alert you if they got low. A different colony of yeast could even synthesize the needed iron for you, which would be sent back to you through the network of vessels, to be absorbed through a mouthpiece. Sound fictitious? Well that’s probably because it is. But Tuur van Balen, a designer in London has just this vision. He calls it the Synthetic Immune System. He imagines that in the future, synthetic biology could lead to a more personalized approach to medicine where we might even outsource our own metabolic actions to engineered organisms such as Yeast. He displayed his model and vision at an exhibition at the Royal College of Art in March. For more information, check out this link to his website.

Emily