A self-assembling gel that stimulates nerve regeneration has shown promise as a treatment for paralysis in mice A self-assembling gel injected at the site of spinal cord injuries in paralysed mice has enabled them to walk again after four weeks. The gel mimics the matrix that is normally found around cells, providing a scaffold that helps cells to grow.

During this process the cells not only shed any memories of their previous identities, but they revert to a younger state. They accomplish this transformation by wiping their DNA clean of the molecular tags that not only differentiate, say, a skin cell from a heart muscle cell, but of other tags that accumulate as a cell ages.