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by sidlls 1672 days ago
The last section about generalizing the treatment is a bit underwhelming. Have they seen any evidence it can be used outside this sort of repair? What about for neuropathies, as from diabetes or surgeries? Stroke? Other dysfunctions (e.g. erectile/genital) having nervous system issues as a contributing factor?

Any treatment "might" have more general applicability--but surely there is some specific direction/class of these conditions that are indicated to be more appropriate to apply the treatment to than others. I wish they'd gone in more depth here.

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A lot of cells will only grow when they feel familiar surroundings. This gel technique is used with various cell types. For example, pancreas cells will not grow alone in glass, but they will grow inside a specially-made gel that mimics their expected extra-cellular matrix [0].

[0] "A microenvironment-inspired synthetic three-dimensional model for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma organoids" https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-01085-1