Over the past decades, there have been numerous outbreaks, including parasitic, fungal, bacterial, and viral infections, worldwide. The rate at which infectious diseases are emerging is disproportionate to the rate of development for new strategies that could combat them. Therefore, there is an increasing demand to develop novel, specific, sensitive, and effective methods for infectious disease diagnosis and treatment. Designed synthetic systems and devices are becoming powerful tools to treat human diseases. The advancement in synthetic biology offers efficient, accurate, and cost-effective platforms for detecting and preventing infectious diseases. Herein we focus on the latest state of living theranostics and its implications.

Cancer therapy can be limited by potential side effects, and bacteria-based living cancer therapeutics have gained scientific interest in recent years. However, the full potential of bacteria as therapeutics has yet to be explored due to engineering challenges. n this study, we present a bacterial device designed to specifically target and eliminate breast cancer cells. We have engineered Escherichia coli (E. coli) to secrete a Shiga toxin, HlyE, which is a pore-forming protein that binds to HER2 receptors on breast cancer cells. This binding is facilitated by a nanobody expressed on the bacteria's surface via the Ag43 autotransporter protein system. Our findings demonstrate that the nanobody efficiently binds to HER2+ cells in vitro, and we have utilized the YebF secretion system to secrete HlyE and kill the target cancer cells. Overall, our results highlight the potential of our engineered bacteria as an innovative strategy for breast cancer treatment.

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