Clive Svendsen, PhD, left, director of the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, and Samuel Sances, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the institute, with the January 2019 special edition of National Geographic. The magazine cover features a striking image of spinal cord tissue that was shot by Sances in his lab. Photo by Cedars-Sinai.

National Geographic is one of those iconic magazines that everyone knows about but few people read. Which is a shame, because it’s been around since 1888 and has helped make generations of readers aware about the world around them. And now, it’s shifting gears and helping people know more about the world inside them. That’s because a special January edition of National Geographic highlights stem cells.

The issue, called ‘The Future of Medicine’, covers a wide range of issues including stem cell research being done at Cedars-Sinai by Clive Svendsen and his team (CIRM is funding Dr. Svendsen’s work in a clinical trial targeting ALS, you can read about that here). The team is using stem cells and so-called Organ-Chips to develop personalized treatments for individual patients.

Here’s how it works. Scientists take blood or skin cells from individual patients, then using the iPSC method, turn those into the kind of cell in the body that is diseased or damaged. Those cells are then placed inside a device the size of an AA battery where they can be tested against lots of different drugs or compounds to see which ones might help treat that particular problem.

This approach is still in the development phase but if it works it would enable doctors to tailor a treatment to a patient’s specific DNA profile, reducing the risk of complications and, hopefully, increasing the risk it will be successful. Dr. Svendsen says it may sound like science fiction, but this is not far away from being science fact.

“I think we’re entering a new era of medicine—precision medicine. In the future, you’ll have your iPSC line made, generate the cell type in your body that is sick and put it on a chip to understand more about how to treat your disease.”

Dr. Svendsen isn’t the only connection CIRM has to the article. The cover photo for the issue was taken by Sam Sances, PhD, who received a CIRM stem cell research scholarship in 2010-2011. Sam says he’s grateful to CIRM for being a longtime supporter of his work. But then why wouldn’t we be. Sam – who is still just 31 years old – is clearly someone to watch. He got his first research job, as an experimental coordinator, with Pacific Ag Research in San Luis Obispo when he was still in high school.