Metabolic engineering

Metabolic engineering means changing the way our bodies work using science. It's like building a Lego city but with our body parts.

Our bodies are made of tiny things called cells. These cells have little factories called organelles that make things that our body needs to work. Imagine a toy factory that makes toys for us to play with. These factories make things like proteins and chemicals that help us digest food or fight off sickness.

But sometimes our bodies might not make enough of these things or might make too much of them. Metabolic engineering is when the scientists use special tools to change the way these factories work so they can make more or less of something.

It's like changing the instructions for the toy factory so that it makes more of one toy or less of another. Scientists can add or remove parts of the cell that are responsible for making these things to make them work better or differently.

This can be helpful for treating some diseases, like diabetes. Our bodies use a chemical called insulin to help our cells use sugar for energy. But sometimes people with diabetes don't make enough insulin. Scientists can use metabolic engineering to create more insulin for these people to help their bodies work better.

So, metabolic engineering is when scientists change the way our body works by changing how the little factories inside our cells make things. They use special tools to add, remove, or change parts of these factories to help our bodies work better.