New technology to manipulate cells could help treat Parkinson's, arthritis, other diseases
"It's important in the context of cell therapies for people to cure these diseases or regenerate tissues that are no longer functional," said senior author Samuel I. Stupp, director of Northwestern's Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology and Board of Trustees Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, Medicine and Biomedical Engineering. The study was published in Nature Communications . Cells in our bodies are constantly being signaled with many types of instructions coming from proteins and other molecules present in the matrices that surround them. For example, these can be cues for cells to express specific genes so they can proliferate or differentiate into several types of cells leading to growth or regeneration of tissues. One of the marvels of this signaling machinery is the built-in capacity in living organisms to make signals stop and re-start as needed, or to switch off one signal and activate a different one to orchestrate ...