The insight «
builds nicely on a number of studies» showing that parts of the fetal
immune system are in place fairly
early in development, says Jakob Michaelsson, an immunologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
He and the Vereide Group grow precursors of human arterial cells,
build colonies of dendritic cells (cells which can alert the rest of the
immune system to the presence of a tumor), and use chick embryos to study the formation of
early tissue layers for a possible future in which complex tissues, or even organs, can be grown to replace diseased, wounded, or malfunctioning ones.