Island worries

additional risk, he says, comes from the very property that regenerative medicine wants replacement organs to possess, namely invisibility to the immune system. " Tissues derived from iPSC may share with ES cells the potential to display immune privilege which may provide a 'safe haven' in which rare transformed cells may develop into tumours or viral pathogens may flourish under the radar of the host immune system. This will doubtlessly need to be addressed before iPSC could ever be used therapeutically, " Fairchild says. So replacement organs made from hES or iPS cells are not going to become available this year, but with clinical trials on the horizon, we can expect further exciting progress, slowly bringing this field closer to real-world clinical applications. While the events in Copenhagen were dominated by the world's largest countries, the issue of climate change is of great concern to many smaller island and coastal states and their inhabitants. One internationally renowned artist has launched an exhibition in his native island of St Lucia to highlight his perceived threat of climate change. " I don't know if there is very much world leaders can do about what is going to happen – because it is going to happen, " says Llewellyn Xavier. " Indeed it is already happening. What I think we as mankind can do is recognize that there is global degradation; that there is climate change – whether it's a cycle or caused by man, " he says. " My concern is what we are doing about it, " he told St Lucia's Mirror newspaper. " Are we going as usual flying these aircraft…? Are we going to ban these fossil fuels? Are we going to air-condition houses and put even more gases into the atmosphere? " Xavier's latest exhibition coincided with the opening of the climate change conference in Copenhagen. Xavier has permanent collections in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Smithsonian and State Department in Washington DC. He also has paintings in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; at Oxford University and the Art Gallery of Ontario. He will be exhibiting work in the series 'Global Council for the Restoration of the Earth's Environment' at airports, universities, hospitals and public places which he hopes can begin in February. Many smaller and coastal states are keen to promote the environmental threat …