Engineered Living Therapeutics: How “Bugs as Drugs” Are Transforming Medicine in 2025
Introduction: Living Cells as Medicine Imagine treating disease by swallowing a pill full of programmed bacteria that take up residence in your gut and produce medicines from within. This sci-fi concept is rapidly becoming reality. Engineered Living Therapeutics (ELTs) refer to any modified live cells – from microbes to human immune cells – that are used as treatment. Instead of manufacturing a drug in a factory, ELTs turn a living cell into the drug factory inside the patient. In 2025, this field has exploded into the spotlight: the World Economic Forum identified ELTs as one of the year’s top emerging