Individually, bacterial and mammalian cell signaling have been widely investigated. However, communication between the kingdoms remains to be fully understood.

Our “stick and secrete” model for interkingdom communication is a powerful tool for custom-building communication pathways between bacteria and mammalian cells.

Swap in, swap out: our modular system allows researchers to engineer customizable interactions between bacteria and mammalian cells.

Our approach has far-reaching potential in the field of synthetic biology.

Foundational level: precisely stimulate certain cell types or model interkingdom interactions like those in the gut microbiome.

Clinical practice: Bacteria-based immunotherapy methods have been growing in popularity due to their cost-efficiency and ease of engineering (Huang et. al, 2021). Our new communication paradigm can be implemented in the form of a helper for CAR-T cancer therapy, as an alternative to traditional immunotherapy methods, or as an aid in wound healing.