defbyte

sunfoundation:

E.chromi Bacteria Color Codes Poop as a Disease Alert System

E.chromi is a project created by designers and synthetic biology scientists at Cambridge University in 2009. They genetically engineered bacteria to “secrete a variety of coloured pigments, visible to the naked eye”. BioBricks, standarized sequences of DNA, are inserted into E. coli bacteria, which creates a color coding system to monitor for disease. A special beverage loaded with this engineered E.coli bacteria is consumed by sick patients who can then diagnose their disease simply by looking at the color of their poop.

Absolutely incredible

(Source: )