Cell therapy is a rapid growing new therapeutic strategy with many advantages including good curative effects, little side effects and personalized treatments etc.. It offers a new choice (sometimes the last option) to clinical treatments of cancer, immunological and degenerative diseases.
The repair of the central nervous system is a world-class challenge in Medicine, with the support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the research group of professor Yen Wei (the Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University) developed a bio-compatible and self-healing hydrogel through facilely utilizing cheap and abundant raw materials (chitosan). Recently, they collaborated with the research group of professor Shan-hui Hsu in National Taiwan University to repair zebrafish’s impaired central nervous system using that self-healing hydrogel as the stem cell carrier. The experiment results showed excellent repair effects, indicating the key and promotion role the self-healing hydrogel during repairing the central nervous system in this cell therapy trial. The research work was published online at 7 May on Advanced Materials. (Ting-Chen Tseng et al., Article first published online: 7 MAY 2015，DOI: 10.1002/adma.201500762)
