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The ability to regrow body parts is dormant in mammals, not lost

143 pointsby nryooyesterday at 5:27 PM51 commentsview on HN

Comments

csr86yesterday at 6:58 PM

Retina is a good example of this. Zebrafish can regrow damaged retina, but while mammals have the same stem cells (Muller glia), they dont repair the retina, but form scar tissue. There is a lot of research and I think they have managed to modify rat genome, so that their retina has showns some repair abilities. The problem is that it often causes tumors.

I have other retina permanently damaged, and suffer from double vision when looking small objects like text.

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david-gpuyesterday at 7:08 PM

Not a single mention of the work on limb regeneration by Professor Michael Levin's lab at Tufts?

https://as.tufts.edu/biology/tufts-center-regenerative-and-d...

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stevenwooyesterday at 6:13 PM

I’m surprised this does not mention humans can grow back the tips of their fingers (past the white part of cuticle) https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/06/10/1903854... Supposed to be only kids but I’ve chopped off a few mm by accident it came back as an adult or I can’t tell the difference.

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anticensoryesterday at 6:02 PM

The trick is to make regeneration fast enough to heal the wound without making fast enough to cause cancer. Maybe even supported by provisional fibrosis.

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gsteyesterday at 8:58 PM

It's just hidden by a feature flag.

(Probably for a good reason)

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kittikittiyesterday at 11:53 PM

I'm hoping that this can be applied to routine genital mutilation in humans that are often done near birth and without consent.

NotGManyesterday at 7:34 PM

In a study they figured out that organs seem to have an electrical potential range as a signature/command for stem cells for which organ to build and where.

In a frog they were able to grow legit eyes in the gut just by artificialy inducing a certain voltage in that area. No need for any cell transplantations: the voltage really seems to be the only signal needed.

This might also be how it might be done in the future in humans: block scar tissue then induce voltage with the signature of the organ you wish to regrow.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22159581/

ranger_dangeryesterday at 6:03 PM

Wasn't this proven many years ago by a random guy who used a "extra-cellular matrix" of stem cells to regrow his severed finger, nail and all?

Found it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7354458.stm

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nryooyesterday at 5:34 PM

[dead]

buddhistdudeyesterday at 7:05 PM

Maybe that's what Jesus used on the people that he healed

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