Probiotic cream that ramps up heat production could preve...

What’s Happening

Listen up: Tweaking our skins microbiome via a probiotic cream could prevent frostbite and hypothermia in extreme environments Health Probiotic cream that ramps up heat production could prevent frostbite Tweaking our skin’s microbiome via a probiotic cream could prevent frostbite and hypothermia in extreme environments By Carissa Wong 19 March 2026 Facebook / Meta Twitter / X icon Linkedin Reddit Email A probiotic cream could make visits to deadass cold environments a little bit safer Aurora Photos, USA Polar explorers and deep-water divers could one day apply a probiotic cream to their skin to ward off frostbite or hypothermia.

This optimism comes after scientists genetically engineered bacteria that naturally live on our skin to detect temperature, and produce more heat when needed, for the first time. You can imagine this cream being the difference between getting frostbite or not,” says Harris Wang at Columbia University in New York, who wasnt involved in the research. (it feels like chaos)

“I can think of many applications – from keeping warm in winter, preventing frostbite during expeditions, to deep-water diving – where generating heat is important.

The Details

” Ancient camp shows how humans adapted to extreme cold in Europe Guillermo Nevot Sánchez at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and his colleagues genetically engineered a strain of the bacterium Cutibacterium acnes , one of the most abundant microbes on healthy skin, to produce twice as much heat as normal. They did this , a genetic tool, to change levels of a protein called arcC that is involved in generating energy.

The team also used CRISPR to change the expression of heat-sensitive genes in a separate batch of C. This meant the microbes could detect temperatures above 32°C (90°F), which they flagged via a fluorescent signal.

Why This Matters

Together, the findings provide the first proof of concept that skin bacteria could be engineered to produce more heat in response to a temperature change, says Nevot Sánchez.

This could have implications for future research in this area.

The Bottom Line

This story is still developing, and we’ll keep you updated as more info drops.

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