Bioreactor implants

the next frontier in human augmentation

Elysia chlorotica

Engineering cells, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic, to produce useful compounds, is a fundamental tenet of biotechnology and synthetic biology. We use microbial fermentation to produce enzymes for industrial applications, we engineer CHO cells to produce biologic drugs to treat cancer, and we transfect HEK293 cells to produce viruses for gene therapy. We classify this as “biomanufacturing.”

But, for certain applications, wouldn’t it be better to skip that biomanufacturing step and go straight to engineering our own cells to produce the compound of interest?

This is basically what gene therapy is, for very specific use cases - modifying a patient’s genes for some clinical benefit, though often it’s preventing the production of a specific protein.

Realistically the cost and risk implicit in a new gene therapy doesn’t (yet) balance out with the value of producing most compounds in vivo vs. ex vivo. Furthermore, genetic modification of the specific cell type of interest, relevant production level, duration of expression, and reversibility, all present massive challenges.

So what about bioreactor implants… or in vivo bioreactors?

If we could package cells in an immune privileged device or envelope, allow nutrients in, and product out, we could implant a small synthetic organoid that could produce the compound of interest for 6 months, a year, maybe more. Perhaps the cells would respond to their environment, increasing or decreasing production accordingly, creating a feedback system.

There is progress being made in the field, specifically for diabetes. Characteristic of Type II diabetes is loss of beta cells in the pancreas - the idea of a synthetic pancreas has been discussed for decades. Encellin’s envelope technology will allow donor beta cells to be implanted in a patient and respond to insulin levels as a normal pancreas would. 

The first generation of implants will encapsulate wild type (unmodified) donor cells but you can imagine a future in which genetically modified cells or non-human cells could be implanted in immune privileged devices, opening up a wide range of possible functions. We may be able to produce some key nutrient when we can't (or don’t want to) consume it normally. Rather than taking a hormone supplement daily, why not implant cells that secrete it over the course of months or years. The possibilities are endless.

I for one, would like photosynthetic implants just beneath my skin like Elysia chlorotica.