title: Cell-Based Therapeutics: Making a Faustian Pact with Biology.
abstract: The diversity and specialization found in biological molecules, pathways, and cells is staggering, and should be exploited for therapeutic use. Through evolution these biological systems have attained a level of functionality that would be impossible to recapitulate with de novo assembly. To adapt these systems for therapeutic applications it will be often necessary to re-engineer molecules and pathways to yield novel sensory, control, and effector modules for insertion into existing, specialized cellular chassis. However, these efforts will be greatly impeded and confounded by the noise, complexity, and context-dependency inherent in biological systems. Thus, we argue that repurposing biology for cell-based therapeutics will be an arduous process, but one that will yield great benefit, and is superior to any alternative.
authors.affiliation: Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1L3, Canada.
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Woodsworth
authors.affiliation: Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1L3, Canada; Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada; Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada. Electronic address: rholt@bcgsc.ca.
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Holt
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D060846:Cell Engineering / Q000379:methods; D064987:Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005818:Genetic Engineering / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D015398:Signal Transduction