E. chromi: Self-diagnosis based on the colour of your poop

Have you got some pesky bacteria that are giving you grief? Well Cambridge researchers have developed a system to colour-code them for you so you can see exactly what you’ve got. You just have to do a little poop investigating first..

I’ll let the inventors explain how this exactly works:

The patient ingests a drink, much like a probiotic shake, laced with the engineered E. coli; the bacteria react with the enzymes, proteins, and other chemicals that are present in the gastrointestinal tract and turn different colors for different diseases, thus changing the color of the patient’s faeces.

Also: somewhere, someone is walking around with that briefcase of coloured poop. Hopefully they are not going door-to-door with it.

(via Inhabitat and Laughing Squid)