Stem cells are generally influenced by a microenvironmental niche, typically comprised of epithelial and mesenchymal cells and extracellular substrates. Many attempts have been made to produce culture systems that mimic normal intestinal epithelial growth and differentiation.
Engineered viruses have great potential as cancer treatments. However, the only currently approved viral therapy, T-vec (Talimogene laherparepvec), suffers from off-target effects that limit its use to intratumoral injection.