Metabolic Engineering to Fight Malnutrition: Vitamin A Drug Delivery Project

Malnutrition in the developing world is responsible for a vicious and deadly cycle of infections that deprive the body of nutrition needed to develop a healthy immune system. Creative new approaches are needed to get life-saving nutrients to places where they are needed most. To address this global health problem, drug delivery scientists at SRI are working on an innovative approach to deliver Vitamin A to children so that their bodies are able to fight off diarrhea-causing infections. In this podcast, researcher Doug Watson explains a project to engineer probiotic bacteria so that it produces lifesaving Vitamin A. Since bacteria can be grown anywhere, the goal is to develop a vitamin A therapy that can be produced and used locally wherever it's needed.