Researchers at an English university say they have uncovered fundamental new rules about immune system function that could enable a ‘unified healer army’ of T cells, that could repair injured muscle, make fat cells respond better to insulin, and regrow hair follicles.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge made a groundbreaking discovery: regulatory T cells, a type of white blood cell, form a unified large population that travels throughout the body to locate and mend damaged tissue. This challenges the conventional belief that these cells are divided into various specialized groups confined to specific areas of the body. The implications of this finding are significant for the treatment of numerous diseases, as nearly all illnesses and injuries activate the body’s immune response.

It’s also interesting they have tested a treatment based on this insight in mice and it has worked. That said, clinical trials can take years before human treatments become available.