50%

is the average medication adherence in the global North

200 000

annual deaths in Europe due to low medication adherence

€125 billion

estimated cost of avoidable expenses caused by low medication adherence

This is why we present:

Our Solution

Developing autonomous drug production at stable levels via a living drug factory, through long-term incorporation of engineered drug-delivering microbes in the gut microbiome.

Project Aim

Developing a self-sustaining drug delivery system by engineering the commensal fish bacteria Pseudomonas alcaligenes to colonize the gut and secrete therapeutic compounds, tested using zebrafish as a model organism.

Why Zebrafish?

It is a powerful and widely used model organism to investigate intestinal and other related processes. The transparent strains allow for live imaging. Zebrafish are not mammals and depend on the yolk sac for feeding up until 5 days as larvae. Therefore, using zebrafish for proof-of-principle work contributes to the 3R policy (Replace, Reduce, Refine) for animal experiments.

Potential Impact

"If it works, it will give a certain sense of rest, now you live every day on the clock."
"The rest and ease of not being occupied with alarms all day, just to take medication the right way at the right time."
"Life will be made more bearable."

Quotes from patients, from our survey.

The impact of our work cannot be overstated. Not only does our product lay the groundwork for the prevention of unnecessary death and high avoidable costs, it will actively improve the quality of life of patients struggling daily with the high demands of their medicine intake. If successful, GutFeeling could be the first step toward living medicine, a bacteria-based system that delivers treatment from the inside, improving adherence, cutting costs, and saving lives.

Watch Our Project Video

Ready to explore GutFeeling?

Pathway

  1. Kleinsinger, F. (2018). The unmet challenge of medication nonadherence. The Permanente Journal, 22(3). https://doi.org/10.7812/tpp/18-033
  2. OECD/European Union (2018). Health at a Glance: Europe 2018: State of Health in the EU Cycle, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/health_glance_eur-2018-en
  3. Brugman, S. (2016). The zebrafish as a model to study intestinal inflammation. Developmental & Comparative Immunology, 64, 82–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dci.2016.02.020
  4. Choi, T., Choi, T., Lee, Y., Choe, S., & Kim, C. (2021). Zebrafish as an animal model for biomedical research. Experimental & Molecular Medicine, 53(3), 310–317. https://doi.org/10.1038/s12276-021-00571-5
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