When Dr. Deanna Gibson first injected a bioengineered strain of E. coli into a mouse with active colitis, she wasn’t just testing a hypothesis—she was launching a decade-long vision into the real world. That strain, designed at UBC Okanagan to not only survive but thrive in inflamed guts, is now poised to enter human clinical trials in Australia this August, marking a pivotal moment in the quest to treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) at the microbial level. For years, conventional probiotics have faltered in clinical settings, often vanishing from the gut precisely when patients need them most—during flare-ups. Gibson and her team, including lead researcher Dr. Andrea Verdugo-Meza, flipped that script by reprogramming a century-old probiotic, E. coli Nissle 1917, to use inflammation as fuel. By inserting a set of genes that allow the bacterium to metabolize tetrathionate—a compound abundant in inflamed intestines—the team gave their probiotic a survival edge exactly where and when it’s needed.
The implications are profound. In mouse models of chronic colitis, none of the animals treated with the engineered strain developed severe disease by week 16, while untreated mice and those given the standard probiotic did. The modified bacteria didn’t just persist—they actively improved gut barrier function, calmed immune responses, and reshaped the microbiome toward a healthier state, all with low, infrequent dosing and no antibiotics. In head-to-head comparisons, the bioengineered probiotic outperformed both the unmodified version and first-line drugs for mild to moderate ulcerative colitis. These results, published in Gastroenterology, were further validated in lab-grown human colon tissue and a successful porcine trial, paving the way for human testing.
The strain is now licensed to Melius MicroBiomics, a UBC Okanagan spinoff co-founded by Gibson, which will oversee the upcoming trials in Australia. If successful, this live biotherapeutic could redefine how we treat not just IBD, but a range of conditions where the microbiome plays a role. The beauty of the approach lies in its elegance: instead of suppressing inflammation with drugs, it deploys a living treatment that responds dynamically to the body’s signals. As Gibson puts it, this isn’t about fighting biology—it’s about working with it. With over 10 million people worldwide living with IBD, and millions more affected by gut dysbiosis, the arrival of this trial isn’t just a scientific milestone—it’s a beacon of hope for a new era of precision microbiome medicine.