THE notion of modifying living cells in the lab and using them therapeutically is still relatively new, yet the range of potential applications is growing by the day.
Stocks of donated blood can run short, especially those of rarer blood types, so wouldn鈥檛 it be great if we could make all donations safe for everyone? Well, researchers can now do this by scrubbing the antigens that define blood type from the surface of blood cells. Clinical trials are pending (see 鈥淒on鈥檛 know your blood group? Doesn鈥檛 matter鈥�).
One long-standing idea for helping people with diabetes control their blood sugar levels has been to give them insulin-producing cells taken from pigs. It now appears that such cells, coated to isolate them from the human immune system, can survive for more than a decade. Today we have even smarter coatings, and new trials are planned (see 鈥淒on鈥檛 know your blood group? Doesn鈥檛 matter鈥�).
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Then there is one of the great hopes of modern medicine: creating complex organs from stem cells. News this week suggests that researchers have turned bone marrow stem cells into a rudimentary heart valve (see 鈥淭ake heart鈥�). Though a working valve may be years away, this achievement is not only another example of our growing ability to manipulate cells outside the body, but also a welcome proof of principle 鈥� tangible evidence of the potential value of stem cells.
