The “cutting edge” of probiotic science now consists of cramming as many CFU into a single pill as possible, in hopes that it will improve colonization of the gut.
Most probiotics will also make a blanket claim of “good for gut health”, but what does that even mean?
There exists a problem of consistency.
The gut microbiome is like a fingerprint, different from person to person. Not just that, gut microbiomes change frequently, and microbiomes will look different from one week to another.
Due to this, probiotics have a hard time colonizing consistently, and if all the positive effects of the probiotic rely on this mechanism, then by extension the probiotic will be inconsistent in providing a positive effect.
GMO probiotics don't suffer the same problems with consistency.
This year, the McGill iGEM team set out to disrupt the probiotic industry by creating a probiotic designed in such a way that does not rely on colonization to work.
No more just “good for gut health” claims.
We target specific health problems: high cholesterol, something that is shown to be linked to cardiovascular disease.
32%
of all global deaths were caused by cardiovascular disease in 2019.
Only
1 in 217
of athlerosclerotic cardiovascular events were prevented using statins.
Current intervention methods for high cholesterol are prescribed too late.
Once a patient already develops cardiovascular disease due to high cholesterol, it is difficult to treat. However, healthy people who do not any symptoms of high cholesterol will be unwilling to take prescription medicine to control cholesterol levels due to the slew of side effects.
Prevention, not prescription
To avoid the serious dangers of high-cholesterol, people need a way of managing cholesterol early on in their lives.
We set out to create a solution. A way for everyone to manage their cholesterol early.
We created a cholesterol-lowering probiotic.
For our chassis, we started with Bacillus subtilis
Notably, B. subtilis can survive in stomach acid, while many standard probiotics struggle.
The gut is the central trafficking point for all cholesterol in the body, both endogenous and dietary.
We engineered B. subtilis with an enzymatic pathway to convert this cholesterol into coprostanol.
While cholesterol and the intermediates between it and coprostanol are absorbable by the human gut, coprostanol remains unabsorbed.
Once the cholesterol is converted, it will be harmlessly excreted with the rest of your waste.
