New Paradigm of Therapeutics: Take It Before It Aches
Addressing the pain point that conventional hyperuricemia drugs “act on the liver and kidneys with notable side effects,” our project breaks from the traditional idea of systemic administration and establishes a new paradigm of targeted intestinal intervention. Engineered bacteria locally block purine absorption and degrade generated uric acid in the gut, thus reducing uric-acid production at its source and avoiding burdens on key organs. Compared with the conventional “treat after onset” model, this paradigm advances health management toward pre-emptive prevention. It provides an innovative approach of “local action and source regulation” for metabolic diseases, aligning with the WHO's advocacy for accessible, safe, and innovative regimens for non-communicable diseases.
Probiotic Series Strains of YES: Catch Purines at Source
We constructed engineered probiotic strains YES301-YES304 to form a synergistic “transport + degradation” system:
- YES301: Through the double-site mutation of XanQ (F88T/F94Y) and promoter/RBS engineering, xanthine transport efficiency increased by 213.19%, and hypoxanthine recognition reached 4.0× that of the wild type.
- YES302: By scarless deletion of the smr resistance gene and validation of plasmid stability, we achieved a “dual guarantee” of antibiotic sensitivity and biosafety, reducing the risk of environmental spread of the GMO strain.
- YES303/YES304: YES303 screens an efficient uric-acid transporter UacT, while YES304 expresses a secreted uricase URIT, enabling—for the first time in our pipeline—the synergy of “blocking precursors of uric acid + degrading uric acid already formed,” thereby expanding the therapeutic boundary.
The series meets the WHO/FAO definition of probiotics as “live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host,” and provides a reproducible chassis-engineering paradigm for applying microbial therapeutics to metabolic diseases.
Math Model: Fingertip Dosage, Personalized Health
We developed an “intestinal-purine ↔ serum-uric-acid dynamic model” based on the Monod equation and refined it through three DBTL cycles:
- Cycle 1 established the base model, quantifying the dynamics among intestinal purines, serum uric acid, and engineered strain abundance.
- Cycle 2 introduced a Gaussian pulse to fit dietary purine fluctuations and added an intestinal uric-acid reabsorption module, reducing the simulation error of serum uric acid from >25% to <8%.
- Cycle 3 embedded the voice assistant UriGuard to enable automatic input of personal features (age/sex/body weight) and diet data for personalized dosage calculation, achieving an error of <5%.
This model breaks from “one-size-fits-all” medication and provides a quantitative tool for personalized dosing of engineered probiotics, upgrading hyperuricemia management from empirical practice to precision calculation.
Suprobiotics: Probiotics “Know-It-All”
We pioneered a comprehensive global platform for science communication and exchange in the probiotics field, delivering value on three fronts:
- For the public: Clear guidance on identifying probiotic quality and preventing hyperuricemia, with multilingual support and color-inclusive design (accommodating color-blind/low-vision users) to remove barriers to health information.
- For researchers: A cross-border community that supports technology sharing in synthetic biology and fosters academic collaboration.
- For industry: Bridges among gut-health companies and clinical institutes to drive the translation of engineered probiotics from lab to market, providing a transparent, science-based development model aligned with "Healthy China 2030.
Inclusivity: Unbiased Health Care, Science for All to Share
We built an end-to-end, inclusive science-popularization framework across four dimensions—age, region, ability, and culture:
- Age coverage: From animated materials for kindergarten, through textbook-integrated modules for middle schools, to lectures for university freshmen—tailored to distinct cognitive stages.
- Regional balance: Outreach to under-resourced communities (e.g., Yuexi in Anhui, and the “triangle-line” communities in Inner Mongolia) to narrow the urban-rural gap in science education.
- Ability adaptation: Braille manuals, audio picture books, and a multilingual voice assistant (Chinese/English/French/Spanish) provide equal access to science for users with visual/hearing limitations.
- Cultural integration: Tai-Chi-based health programs and "Light of Life" art competitions use familiar cultural carriers to lower the threshold for understanding synthetic biology.
This practice echoes the WHO's principle of “inclusive health information,” advancing science from a specialist domain to shared public knowledge and offering a replicable blueprint for global science communication.