Everybody need food to live life, but sometimes food can become deadly. Food poisoning is a nightmare for all people and the Bacteria named Salmonella is responsible for this. It’s been recorded that almost 400 people die each year of food poisoning. Now, scientists are able to manipulate the bacteria to fight against the cancer cells, rather than attacking the Gastrointestinal Tract(GUT).

A research team from Duke University has genetically engineered Salmonella to fight against Glioblastoma. It is a very fast growing brain tumor which leads to deadliest cancer. Over the last 5 years, only 10 percent of affected peoples were diagnosed with a mean life span of only 15 months, according to the report by Engadget.

Cancer was often treated by Chemotherapies and surgery is also not a good option, even if only one tumor cell is left behind then it would replicate itself to spawn new cells. Now here comes to the role of Salmonella Typhimurium. Duke’s research team genetically engineered the bacterial DNA to trigger those customized bacterias towards the Glioblastoma.

Vinik Dean of Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and lead author of the paper, Ravi Bellamkonda said in a statement to DigitalTrends,”Brain tumors are tough to treat because they invade brain tissue and don’t have a clear edge that allows neurosurgeons to remove all the tumor”.

The team filled the tumors with a crucial amino acid named Purine because, Salmonella gets attracted by Purine. Researchers also instructed bacterias to produce two compounds named, Azurian and p53. Those two compounds can destruct tumor cells and this entire process is totally harmless o patients. This process is only possible in low Oxygen Environments, such as the inside of tumor where bacterias are replicating rapidly. In this way, after a certain amount of time tumorous cells and bacterias will die off.

Scientists first applied this experiment on mice and the result was magical, 20 percent of all mice lasted for 100 days. 100 days of rodents are equivalent to 10 years in humans. The success rate is now doubled in mice but it doesn’t mean that it will work on the human body. But scientists are still hopeful that one day it will reduce the risk of dying of cancer.

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