Scientists have come up with two studies that describe how genetically modified bacteria could prove helpful in detecting cancerous tumors and diabetes in mice. They also said that it can potentially be used as a diagnostic tool for humans.

The first study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. It revealed how scientists did the modification of E. coli bacteria and then transformed it into a kind of living sensor that could be left in a mouse's body for thirty days to detect tumors inside its body.

Generally, E. coli can pass through the gut walls and colonize liver tumors, but scientists modified the bacteria for the production of an enzyme that changes the color of a mouse's urine, as an early warning system.

Although the genetically modified E. coli has showed visible proof of cancerous tumor presence in mice within 24 hours, the method needs to be proven to work in humans. This is because the human's gut microbiomes are very different from those in mice.

Researchers carried the second study and used the bacteria to look for glycosuria in humans, which is the presence of sugar in urine. It is a sure sign of uncontrolled diabetes.

The E. coli bacteria changed the color of the urine to red in 89% of cases where there was presence of glycosuria, suggesting that diabetes was present when actually it was not in just 3% of cases.

At present the researchers of the study are working on liver cancer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and UC San Diego, and diabetes at University of Montpellier in France and Stanford University.

According to them, their works are crucially very important for improvement in diagnosis and treatment of diseases, which have chances to go undetected for some time.