04-27-2014, 05:49 AM
(04-27-2014, 05:03 AM)stevebowers Wrote: How about a biotech implant cloning stem cells spontaneously? If they hope to do it in the lab, the ultimate aim would be to do it in the body.
Stem cells aren't a panacea, their use is to give rise to other cells that can be grown in a controlled fashion (to direct cell behaviour) and implanted where needed. Some therapies directly use stem cells but it's early days. Just generating them and releasing them in the body isn't going to help, at the worst you could generate teratomas.
Of course medical implants are a part of the setting and no doubt will be used. There are labs IRL working on implants that will contain cells engineered to produce certain factors when the body requires it by detecting it from the blood.