This is really interesting. Am I the only one whose spidey sense is tingling here? Whether it’s the odd choice of acronym, the almost impossibly good news, or the very vague description, something doesn’t quite look right here. If you Google it, a lot or more-or-less reputable outlets have covered this within the last day, but also some 4-channers are thinking that it is either a hoax or else a wild claim that will be retracted.
Might be a good time to trust but verify.
Your caution is appreciated. History is littered with outlandish medical miracle claims that turn out to be nothing more than snake oil.
You’re right to be wary.
One has to read the original article in Nature Regeneration to see what they are actually reporting.
Many many times the press releases and subsequent news reports such as this one are highly exaggerated and misleading with respect to the actual research published in the article that starts all the news reports.
Whenever there is a new biotechnology, the people promoting it and saying things that are too good to be true about it are usually looking for investors to fund the development of the technology. In most cases, the technology is not as miraculous as they initially claimed when trying to get investor funding, but it does turn out to have some beneficial effect.
This particular technology looks to me, by its name, to be an alternative method for genetic engineering within the body. As such, it will have no less and no more success than the many other methods of genetic engineering used for therapeutic purposes. "Classic" genetic engingeering was once hyped as a potential cure-all... that hasn't panned out, I think its uses are limited.
Correction, it’s Nature Nanotechnology.
Here is the article and abstract.
http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2017.134.html
Although cellular therapies represent a promising strategy for a number of conditions, current approaches face major translational hurdles, including limited cell sources and the need for cumbersome pre-processing steps (for example, isolation, induced pluripotency)1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. In vivo cell reprogramming has the potential to enable more-effective cell-based therapies by using readily available cell sources (for example, fibroblasts) and circumventing the need for ex vivo pre-processing7, 8. Existing reprogramming methodologies, however, are fraught with caveats, including a heavy reliance on viral transfection9, 10. Moreover, capsid size constraints and/or the stochastic nature of status quo approaches (viral and non-viral) pose additional limitations, thus highlighting the need for safer and more deterministic in vivo reprogramming methods11, 12. Here, we report a novel yet simple-to-implement non-viral approach to topically reprogram tissues through a nanochannelled device validated with well-established and newly developed reprogramming models of induced neurons and endothelium, respectively. We demonstrate the simplicity and utility of this approach by rescuing necrotizing tissues and whole limbs using two murine models of injury-induced ischaemia.