Stem cells to reboot Crohn's?

There's some interesting research being done at the University of Nottingham into using stem cell therapy to "cure" Crohn's disease. Their trial hasn't started yet, but it is intriguing.

Crohn's sufferers are genetically predisposed to the disease, which is first triggered in their body when they come into contact with a particular environmental stimulus. Once this happens, the immune system responds — leading to symptoms that blight the lives of sufferers.

Stem cells hold a potential solution to this problem. As the body's 'master' cells, which can be directed to form any type of tissue, they will be extracted from patients and then re-established in their bone marrow to 're-boot' the immune system, taking it back to a state before Crohn's symptoms were triggered.

There is also a brief mention of their other current investigation into the use of hookworms to control mild Crohn's disease, but unfortunately they don't say whether the trial is going well.