Analysis Of The Article: Scientists Are Retooling Bacteria To Cure Disease

Summary

The article discusses how bacteria are being utilized for the human microbiome in order to address the disease phenylketonuria. By consuming a concoction of synthetic bacteria, an individual with phenylketonuria can have the synthetic bacteria break down phenylalanine so that it does not damage their body.

Analysis

• The key points of this article involve how the consumption of a safe strain of E. coli with a gene inserted can break down phenylalanine, which can be used for individual with phenylketonuria because their bodies cannot break down phenylalanine on their own. Another key point is how microbes have such great potential for further use in the internal human microbiome to address diseases. For example, at the end of the article it is mentioned how bacteria have the potential to assist in cancer treatment because of how natural bacteria have the potential to invade and grow inside of tumors.
• The article is written by an author with a strong background in science and provided by the New York Times, making it credible and scientifically accurate. This can be seen by how the article accurately describes the usage of genes in bacteria and how the bacteria will function in regard to diseases.
• I found it interesting how the bacteria will only function in the human gut due to the low oxygen there, allowing them to only activate where necessary to break down phenylalanine in the stomach. The logistics on how microbes will work in the microbiome were very striking to me.
• In this article, I agree with how all of the information is laid out in an explanatory manner. The background on phenylketonuria is provided before the functionality of the genetically engineered bacteria is mentioned so that readers are fully aware of exactly why the bacteria are important. Overall, I agree with the author about how microbes can be utilized to further treat diseases thanks to their versatility and ability to be genetically modified.

Conclusion

• A new insight that this article provides is how microbes can be utilized in areas that were not previously considered, like in humans to directly address the impacts of disease. This is thanks to a combination of genetic engineering and microbes and allows for many new opportunities to address other diseases that can impair an individual’s day to day life. This article opened my eyes to the possibility that microbes can possibly reduce the negative impact of many diseases.
• The personal relevance to this article can be seen in how everyone, including me, would like to be protected from the impact of diseases. Thanks to microbes, this potential can be realized and individuals like me can have hope that having diseases like phenylketonuria will not be as life-impairing as they currently are thanks to developments in genetics and microbial work. Moreover, this article is relevant to what we have learned in lecture in regard to genetic engineering and using vectors such as plasmids in order to put genes into bacteria. This article discusses how bacteria are genetically modified through the addition of a gene that breaks down phenylalanine, which made me think about the plasmid vectors and how what we learned in lecture has such a significant use.