Chinese team aims to put ‘smart’ diabetes probiotic on US shelves within 2 years
Chinese researchers have engineered a probiotic that could make diabetes care as simple as drinking a cup of yogurt or swallowing a capsule. The “smart” bacterium, designed to sense high blood sugar and automatically release a glucose-lowering hormone, performed on par with the blockbuster drug Ozempic in animal tests, according to a study published in Nature last week. The team at East China…
A Chinese research team has developed a "smart" probiotic that could revolutionize diabetes care by simply being consumed as yogurt or a capsule. This innovative bacterium can sense elevated blood sugar levels and autonomously release a glucose-lowering hormone, performing as effectively as the popular diabetes medication Ozempic in animal trials, according to a study recently published in Nature.
The East China Normal University team in Shanghai has already secured patents and is now working on scaling up production to meet pharmaceutical standards for the US and European markets. Lead scientist Ye Haifeng predicts the probiotic may reach US shelves within two years in the form of a health supplement. Diabetes affects over 530 million adults globally and this number could surge to more than 850 million by 2050.
Current treatments involve oral medications or insulin injections to regulate blood sugar levels. The "smart" probiotic, named Gift, functions by remaining inactive when glucose levels are normal and automatically initiating a glucose-lowering mechanism when levels rise. In animal studies, Gift showed efficacy in managing blood sugar levels in diabetic mice and non-human primates, improving lipid profiles and mitigating various diabetic complications.
Compared to modified mammalian cells used in earlier research, the probiotic offers greater safety, convenient administration, and the ability to maintain gut microbiome balance. Gift utilizes a probiotic strain, E coli Nissle 1917, which is safe for humans, and incorporates a glucose-detector protein from Pseudomonas putida bacteria and a GLP-1 encoding gene.
The probiotic, Gift, has been tested on mice and monkeys and demonstrated significant improvements in blood sugar control, insulin and glucose tolerance, as well as reductions in fatty liver disease, kidney injury, and colon inflammation. In head-to-head comparisons with Ozempic, Gift's glucose-lowering effects were found to be comparable.
The team is currently focused on enhancing the probiotic's safety and optimizing its production process to meet Good Manufacturing Practice standards for eventual market entry in the US and Europe. Beyond diabetes, Ye believes Gift's modular design could be adapted for other metabolic diseases like obesity and steatosis.
Written by urgent.news from Reuters Business via SCMP's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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