Universal stem cells by Leonardo Ferreira

Many people die waiting for a compatible organ. For patients with an autoimmune disease (e.g. type 1 diabetes), even a matched organ (e.g. pancreas) will be rejected by their immune system. Efforts focused on developing universally compatible pluripotent stem cells and derived cells, tissues, and organs, via genome editing to ablate immune rejection-mediating genes (chiefly HLA) and incorporate tolerogenic genes (e.g. CD47, PD-L1, HLA-G), are being undertaken. Published studies demonstrate the feasibilty of multiplex CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in pluripotent stem cells and protection of derived tissues from both innate and adaptive immune responses.