Salmonella is the kind of microbe people make a special effort to avoid. Long gone are the days of eating raw eggs. Instead we make sure they’re well cooked, and while we’re at it we triple-wash our spinach and handle raw chicken like a biohazard in the kitchen.

But, as reported in a news feature in this month’s Nature Medicine, scientists are reworking Salmonella to be able to infiltrate the hard-to-reach centers of tumors. A press release from the University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Center in Minneapolis yesterday points to a clinical trial there in which scientists have engineered a weakened version of the microbe that also carries the immune signaling compound interleukin-2 (IL-2). According to the press release, “The salmonella IL-2 cocktail is mixed with water and taken as a liquid.” Recruitment is ongoing.

Image by Rocky Mountain Laboratories/NIAID/NIH via Flickr Creative Commons