The hope is to save lives during combat or aeromedical evacuations and improve troops' longevity. "There are amazing opportunities in the United States, that you don't see in the rest of the world, to humanize science and meet critical needs in medicine," Rajapakse said in the release. The project was made possible through funding from the AFRL's Air Force Office of Scientific Research in Arlington, Virginia. "We have the resources to do this, and it is our obligation to take full advantage of them," he said. The process of reprogramming a cell modifies its genome, or its genetic material. This is done using proteins, called transcription factors, that hasten or stop different genes "to regulate activities such as cell division and growth, and cell migration and organization," the release states.