BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOENGINEERING INNOVATIONS IN PRECISION OBESITY MANAGEMENT: MECHANISTIC INSIGHTS, EMERGING PLATFORMS, AND TRANSLATIONAL PATHWAYS

Obesity is a major global health challenge, with prevalence rising despite decades of lifestyle, pharmacologic, and surgical interventions. These conventional strategies remain limited by poor durability, safety concerns, and scalability, underscoring the need for precision alternatives. Obesity is reframed not as caloric imbalance but as a systemic disorder involving impaired insulin signaling, dysregulated AMPK–mTOR sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, adipokine imbalance, chronic inflammation, and disruption of gut–brain–liver–adipose communication. This perspective enables biotechnology and bioengineering to target upstream regulatory nodes. Multi-omics platforms allow patient stratification and biomarker prediction, while synthetic biology and engineered microbiomes provide programmable interventions to remodel metabolism. Bioengineered adipose constructs, organoid models, and multi-organ microphysiological systems recapitulate human physiology, bridging discovery with clinical translation. Precision delivery systems — including ligand-functionalized nanocarriers, engineered exosomes, and adaptive implants — facilitate organ-specific, durable modulation. Complementary diagnostic tools, such as AI-driven imaging, wearable biosensors, and digital twin frameworks, shift care from episodic treatment to continuous, adaptive management. Together, these advances redefine obesity as a systems disorder requiring integrated, patient-centered solutions. Challenges include immune clearance of nanocarriers, standardization of omics pipelines, regulatory harmonization, and equitable access. This review synthesizes mechanistic insights with emerging technologies to outline a roadmap for precision obesity medicine.