Holy crap, this is crazy. Cambridge University scientists have given mice the ability to regrow any body part except the brain, including limbs and organs. The even crazier thing is that they could inject tissue from these mice into existing mice and give those mice the ability to regrow body parts as well. Whoa...
Given that this is the result of manipulating a small number of genes, there's probably some sort of evolutionary advantage to not having the ability to regrow body parts, or mice would have that ability naturally. I wonder what it is.
Comments (4)
I can't resist making the obvious comment. Can you say Wolverine? Find me some Adamantium now!
It's probably a huge cancer trap though. The womb, where all that growth normally happens, is a highly controlled and pretty safe environement. See the Slate article on monster farming. Also, I think some lizards have this ability, at least re: their tails, so it's possible that they switched on genes that got switched off with the transition to mammal or warmblood or whatnot. I know that the main difference between coldblood and warmblood is a 3 vs. 4 chambered heart, but if there's some substantial difference in the density and nature of the network of blood vessels and lymph channels, perhaps whimsically regrowing them is not conducive to that.
And of course all questions of evolutionary modifications have to be measured against conditions in the wild and what happens to offspring. Maybe a mother mouse who is constantly releasing all kinds of growth hormone to heal over every little nick and scratch is not the ideal environment for incubating a fetal mouse; maybe it messes with their metabolisms in ways that attract prey or (more basically than my vein theory above) interfere with their ability to perform homeostasis in a non-lab environment.
What I'd really like to know, however, is how they regrow the nerve endings, especially in the limbs. Is that a whole new nerve? Or the same long nerve whose axon was chopped off with the amputated limb, sending out a new colonist axon in coordination with the rest of the regrowth. There's a lot more margin for error with most other tissue . .. .
Posted by SSR | September 1, 2005
Posted on September 1, 2005
What I find especially crazy is how they can use gene therapy (?) to give already-born mice this ability. That could make this much more useful, since you wouldn't have to use it for newborns, but rather you could use it as a last-ditch technique for grown adults for whom the benefits outweight the risks?
Posted by ToastyKen | September 1, 2005
Posted on September 1, 2005
Oh, and all we have to do to mitigate the cancer risk thing is to cure cancer! *pshaw!*
Posted by ToastyKen | September 1, 2005
Posted on September 1, 2005
OMG this is weird! If only they would be brave enough to do this to humans who have lost parts of their body.
Posted by tiatulip | August 6, 2008
Posted on August 6, 2008