The availability of such cells — with properties similar to those from humans and other animals — should help scientists accelerate research on therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
“Tissues are wonderfully complex structures, so to engineer artificial versions of them that function properly, we have to recreate their complexity,” said UCLA professor Ali Khademhosseini.
UCLA research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is the first proof that a single material can be both static and moving.
The finding could eventually be used to help address human diseases associated with an imbalanced regulation of mitochondria size – for example, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.