• Question: Is there a way to change a potentially harmful bacteria into a beneficial one?

    Asked by anon-231239 to Tom, Steven, Clio, Bruno Silvester on 15 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Bruno Silvester Lopes

      Bruno Silvester Lopes answered on 15 Nov 2019:

      by changing its DNA or removing a gene that makes it harmful , yes but it can be a hard process to begin with…

    • Photo: Clio Andreae

      Clio Andreae answered on 18 Nov 2019:

      Yes by removing the genetic elements that cause it to become pathogenic. There are new methods coming out to use a bacteria’s natural ability to invade human cells to help to deliver therapeutic agents which would then be benefical e.g. to cause cancer cells to die.

    • Photo: Steven Rudder

      Steven Rudder answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      Cool question. You could certainly stop it being harmful by removing parts of it’s DNA. As to making it beneficial this would be more tricky and time consuming. It maybe a better approach to look at bacteria that are already beneficial and work to improve them.

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