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Special delivery: bacterial couriers are smuggling drugs into cancers

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Microorganisms that deliver treatments to tumours could make chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy safer and more effective.

By

  1. Liam Drew

    1. Liam Drew is a freelance science journalist based near London.

A cartoon rod-shaped bacterium, wearing a baseball cap with a pill logo on the front, delivering a white pizza box with a red cross on its lid. The bacterium is smiling. In the background, two identically attired bacteria ride mopeds towards ugly masses of cells reminiscent of tumours.

Illustration: Julia Specht represented by Roar Artists

John Heller might well owe his life to Salmonella bacteria. In the summer of 2023, Heller was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer. He began chemotherapy, expecting that this would give him about a year to live. But then a chance conversation led to him contacting a surgeon at the University of Minnesota, in Heller’s hometown of Minneapolis. The surgeon, Daniel Saltzman, was developing an innovative therapy that used genetically engineered Salmonella Typhimurium bacteria to deliver a potent immune-system-activating molecule called interleukin-2 (IL-2) to people’s tumours.

Nature 657, S10-S12 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-02657-4

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Drug delivery, a supplement produced with financial support from Taiho Oncology, Inc. Nature maintains full independence in all editorial decisions related to the content. About this content.

References

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