‘Bacteria on a chip’ to diagnose disease

This undated photo provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Engineering in May 2018 shows a capsule packed with electronics and genetically engineered living cells in Cambridge, Mass. Researchers at MIT, who tested the swallowable device in pigs, say it correctly detected signs of bleeding. The results, published online Thursday, May 24, 2018 by the journal Science, suggest a smaller version of the capsule could eventually be used in humans to find signs of ulcers, inflammatory bowel disease or even colorectal cancer. (Lillie Paquette/MIT School of Engineering via AP)

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), U.S., have built an ingestible sensor equipped with genetically engineered bacteria that can diagnose bleeding in the stomach or other gastrointestinal problems. This “bacteria-on-a-chip” approach combines sensors made from living cells with ultra-low-power electronics that convert the bacterial response into a wireless signal. In turn, this can be read by a smartphone. To make these bacteria more useful for real-world applications, the MIT team decided to combine them with an electronic chip that could translate the bacterial response into a wireless signal. The researchers tested the ingestible sensor in pigs and showed that it could correctly determine whether any blood was present in the stomach.