Why Create Bacteria Capable of Expressing Different Colors?

This video dicusses the collaborative research done by a group of designers and scientists in 2009. These Cambridge University undergraduates used synthetic biology to design bacteria that can secrete colors visable to the naked eye. The project was called E. chromi and their goal was to improve bacterial bio-sensors that can tell the concentration of pollutants in water. The video discusses how the students were able get the bacteria to do this. It involves two parts, one called a detector and the other called the sensitivity tuner. The detector senses the pollutants and the sensitivity tuner tells the detector when to turn on and when to turn off. As part of the project, the team created a possible time line for how this technology may develop over the next sixty years. I particulary liked the idea they present about personal disease monitoring. They suggest that one day this will involve buying a drink at the super market that contains color producing E. chromi bacteria. The bacteria would establish a colony in your stomach and monitor for chemical signals. If certain chemicals indicating a disease are detected, the bacteria would produce a color that would show up in feces, and the person woud know they need to see a doctor. I am interested in how this aspect of synthetic biology will develop over the next few years. This could change the way we think about preventative health care. People would be able to know as soon as they were getting sick if they drank this product regularly. The idea of a company controlling a certain color, in the video they suggest orange, seems farfetched. Then again, there are companies today trying to patent genetically engineered crops. Where else could this technology be applied? Where else could it create potential problems?

E. chromi. 2009. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg & James King, Cambridge University iGEM Team. Video. Web. 20 Apr. 2011. <http://vimeo.com/19759432>