Thanks to Alex and Petra for presenting their work at Café Ariman!

Alex, a Master's student at the Faculty of Medicine, explain how one can make lung cells from skin, or any kind of cell for that matter. Since every single cell in our bodies contains all of an individual's genetic information, the differences between them only come from which genes the cell is currently reading and working with. By using the right kind of signals, researchers have already managed to create heart and nerve cells the common skin cells, for example. Alex is already well on his way to finding just the right mix of signals required to generate lung cells in the lab, which could be used to better understand their natural formation and perhaps one day even to restore damaged lungs.

Petra, a postdoc at the Faculty of Law, talked about the many ways in which artificial intelligence or AI is being explored in the context of health and disease. Medical devices are usually required to go through a lot of testing to make sure that they really help people, but new technologies are opening up gray areas which can be exploited by bad (or careless) actors and cause headaches to lawyers. For example, the rise of ChatGPT-like conversational AI enabled creation of virtual "mental health buddies" which are sometimes recommended to people with depression without any proof that they would really work and which may end up doing real harm instead. With the help of Petra and others at Faculty of Law, legislation stands a chance to keep up with the rapidly evolving technologies and walk the line between innovation and patient safety.

Join us next time on April 20th at 19h at Cafe Ariman for more fascinating research across Lund University!