Project

SCORCH

Country

The Netherlands / Romenia

Medical adherence is a societal challenge, as even effective treatments fail when they collide with the realities of human behavior or limitations, daily life, and limited support systems. This is more so for certain diseases as Parkinson, as the disease directly impairs precision while medical intake requires precision. For the international iGEM competition, students from Utrecht University engineered a gut bacterium to continuously produce medication for Parkinson’s disease. This ‘living medication factory’ produces autonomously and at a stable level, which could remove the need for timed doses.

However, how open is society for such autonomous element within our body? To visualise the concept, Michelle Than and Vlad Ungureanu from iGEM presented SCORCH (Science Communicator Of Remedial Colonising Holobiome), an interactive tool showing how traditional medication fades, while the engineered bacterium provides steady, lasting effects.