Researchers at UCLA have managed to guide pluripotent stem cells into becoming adult T cells, the cells that patrol the body to kill cancer and other diseases and that are trained in our thymi.

The study, published in Cell Stem Cell, was led by senior author Gay Crooks, M.D., a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and of pediatrics. Dr. Crooks is the co-director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.