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About seven years in the past, Aaron Silverbook and his then-girlfriend, a biologist, had been perusing outdated scientific literature on-line. “A romantic night,” joked Silverbook. That evening, he got here throughout a research from 2000 that shocked him. Scientists had genetically engineered an oral bacterium that they mentioned might presumably forestall tooth decay: “I learn it and form of boggled at it and mentioned, ‘Wow, this can be a cavity vaccine. Why do not we’ve this?’”
So, Silverbook tracked down the first creator, Jeffrey Hillman, a now-retired oral biologist previously on the College of Florida, to see if he might choose up the torch.
In 2023, Silverbook based Lantern Bioworks, which made a take care of Oragenics, the corporate Hillman co-founded and that owned the know-how, for the supplies. Lantern Bioworks then launched the genetically engineered micro organism below the title Lumina Probiotic. “I didn’t count on it to occur in my lifetime,” mentioned Hillman.
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