Regenerating lost body parts - Starfish style

Starfish are curious creatures. Perhaps, their most characteristic ability is how they can regenerate lost limbs. If a starfish lost a limb, it is going to be regenerated. Even more surprising, a new starfish will be born from that lost limb.

This “T-1000” characteristic caught the attention of several biogenetics researches. In 2004, doctors from the University of California studied starfish’s genetic code and discover that some genes could be useful to understand some specific characteristics of cancer, effects of aging and, of course, regeneration. In addition, researchers created new genes on which similar cells from both human and starfish coexist. This experiment was the first of a set that involved computing techniques to do a more thorough work. At the same time, researchers of the University of Auckland got interested on this investigation because they were conducting research on brain regeneration to treat patients with degenerative diseases. So, it is proper to say that starfish may have the answer to several problems that diseases cause to us.

 

Despite starfish and humans are quite different, researchers keep doing experiments to find the expected result: discover how to mix genes that could make humans regenerate lost parts of their bodies. These experiments represents the hopes of many amputees, whose life have changed in a negative way after losing an arm or a leg—in worse cases, the two arms or legs.

Although studies on starfish may provide new solutions to the medicine field, they are considered animal experimentation. Starfish are still not so well known creatures, considering some of their characteristics a mystery. So, should researches continue with this investigation? Are starfish the answer to other degenerating diseases?

For more information, check this The New Zealand Herald article:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3584086

Pig Guts, the new "panacea" for limb regeneration.

                   

Have you ever taken into consideration a relationship between growing a new limb and pig's intestine cells?

Well, you may start doing it now, because science surprises us again with a discovery that will change medicine and healing procedures for ever.

It all started when Dr. Stephen Badylak tried to replace a dog's aorta with a piece of its own intestine. Thinking that the dog would not survive, Dr. Badylak kept "Rocky", the dog, in observation for a day. To his surprise, with just one day of recovery, Rocky was eating breakfast and wagging his tail, as usual.

But, how did it happen?

After some extra research, Dr. Badylak realized that the intestine cells worked as a magneto for stem cells which served the purpose of regenerating lost tissue. The interesting thing is that it also regenerated skeletal muscle, tissue that was believed to be unrecoverable.

After this extraordinary breakthrough, scientists realized that many tissues, and even tissue from other species, can be used in the regeneration of organs and limbs. That is how pigs were considered and tested to be part of this experiment, which from that point on would not involve animals anymore.

This is how, Isaias Hernandez, a marine that was injured in Iraq, and lost more that 50 percent of the muscles in his right leg, volunteered to try this new procedure on humans. Now the same marine, is running and playing sports to get fit enough to re-join the Marines.