Harvard’s Wyss Institute and engineering collaborators described implantable living materials (ILMs) that confine engineered bacteria inside a hydrogel while enabling autonomous therapeutic release in response to infection cues. The Science-published work targets a long-standing barrier for microbe-as-medicine: preventing bacterial dissemination while preserving drug delivery functionality. In the platform, bacteria sense chemical signals from pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and then self-destruct to release an antibacterial protein. The researchers reported confinement stability through durability testing, including fatigue-style mechanical stress and six-month containment assessments. In a mouse joint-infection model, the ILM system reduced bacterial burden when challenged with the target pathogen. The approach is positioned as a shift from passive depots to responsive, programmable living therapeutics that could extend durability and specificity for infection-related indications.