Tal Danino receives the 2026 Lotus Award
The award supports development of engineered probiotic bacteria for targeted ovarian cancer therapy.
News
The Latest
Research, awards, publications, talks, collaborations, and other updates from the Danino Lab.
Selected Recent Highlights
News
Toward development of soil-derived Bacillus isolates as lung cancer cytotoxic agents.
Our work on soil-derived Bacillus isolates as lung cancer cytotoxic agents in BioDesign Research !
Design and modeling of biosensor-driven encapsulation systems for systemic delivery of bacterial cancer therapy
Our work on designing and modeling of biosensor-driven encapsulation systems for systemic delivery in cancer bactery therapy in ACS Synthetic Biology ! See paper here
Engineered Microbial-Based Therapeutics Nose No Bounds: Extending Innovation to Rhinologic Disease Management
Collaborative review in International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology! See review here
Engineered bacteria launch and control an oncolytic virus
Our work on engineering probiotics to launch and control an oncolytic virus for cancer therapy in Nature Biomedical Engineering !
Using bacteria to sneak viruses into tumors
Columbia News
Two Columbia Engineering Faculty Members Join AIMBE College of Fellows
Tal Danino becomes AIMBE fellow- Highlight in Columbia Engineering News
Tal Danino Named Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator to Advance Living Therapeutics
Tal Danino named Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator- see Highlight in Columbia Engineering News
Probiotic neoantigen delivery vectors for precision cancer immunotherapy
Our work on engineering probiotics as neoantigen delivery vectors for precision cancer immunotherapy in Nature!
Hacking bacteria to attack cancer
Columbia University Irving Medical Center News
A bacterial neoantigen cancer vaccine
Nature Biotechnology
From The Bench: Jonathan Pabón, PhD
Highlight in AACR
Programmable Probiotics for Targeted Breast Cancer Therapy
Highlight in CDMRP
Colorectal cancer detection and treatment with engineered probiotics
Our work on engineering probiotics to detect and treat colorectal cancer in Nature Communications!
Finding Beauty in the World of Microbes
Columbia News
Glorious Germs, Ready for Their Close-Up
New York Times
Bacterial therapies at the interface of synthetic biology and nanomedicine
Our review on bacterial therapies at the interface of synthetic biology and nanomedicine in Nature Reviews Bioengineering!
Probiotic-guided CAR-T cells for solid tumor targeting
Our work on engineering tumor homing probiotics to improve CAR-T cell targeting of solid tumors is out now in Science! See paper here
Bacteria tag tumours for CAR-T cell attack
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery
A bacterial assist for CAR-T cells
Nature Biotechnology Research Highlights
Engineered bacteria guide T cells to tumors
Science Perspectives
Engineered bacteria launch and control an oncolytic virus
Zak Singer and Jonathan Pabon’s preprint is online!
Bacterial therapies at the interface of synthetic biology and nanomedicine
Nature Reviews Bioengineering
Engineered bacterial swarm patterns as spatial records of environmental inputs
Our work on engineering bacterial patterns as visible biosensor readouts for heavy metals is out now in Nature Chemical Biology! See paper here
Colorectal cancer detection and treatment with engineered probiotics
Candice Gurbatri’s preprint is online!
Chemokines expressed by engineered bacteria recruit and orchestrate antitumor immunity
Our collaboration on how bacteria was used to release chemokines to treat tumors is out on Science Advances! See paper here
Engineered bacteria for short-chain-fatty-acid-repressed expression of biotherapeutic molecules
Our collaboration on creating genetic systems that could function as a diagnostic tool for measuring SCFAs and as delivery vehicles for biotherapeutic molecules is out on Microbiology Spectrum! See paper here
Engineering bacteria as interactive cancer therapies
Our review as part of Science magazine’s special issue on cell engineering
A rapid screening platform to coculture bacteria within tumor spheroids
Our work on bacteria spheroid coculture is out now in Nature Protocols! See paper here
Cancer Researcher/Artist Stefani Alexis Shoreibah ’21
Barnard feature on our undergraduate student Stefani Shoreibah’s work
Engineering Bacteria to Improve Cancer Immunotherapy with CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR Tal Danino
Cancer Research Institute article
Engineered bacterial swarm patterns as spatial records of environmental inputs
Anjali Doshi’s preprint is online!
Bacterial couriers as cancer vaccines
Nature Biomedical Engineering News & Views
A deep learning pipeline for segmentation of Proteus mirabilis colony patterns
Anjali Doshi and Marian Shaw’s preprint is online!
CAR-T cells SEAK help from enzymes
Nature Chemical Biology News & Views
The Origin and Contribution of Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts in Colorectal Carcinogenesis. Gastroenterology
Our collaboration on how cancer-associated fibroblasts play an important role in colorectal cancer is out today in Gastroenterology ! See paper here
A programmable probiotic encapsulation system enhances therapeutic delivery in vivo
Tetsu Harimoto and Jaeseung Hahn’s preprint is online!
Enhancing the tropism of bacteria via genetically programmed biosensors
Our work on engineered biosensor for bacterial targeting in vivo is out now in Nature Biomedical Engineering! See paper here
Quantitative measurements of early alphaviral replication dynamics in single cells reveals the basis for superinfection exclusion
Our work on studying viral replication at the sing-cell level is out now in Cell Systems! See paper here