“Chop off a newt’s tail and it regenerates. Carve out a piece of a zebra fish’s heart and it grows back. Why can’t humans do similar tricks?” So opens an Wall Street Journal article on August 6, 2010 by Gautam Naik and Ron Winslow. Scientists are making important steps to get mature tissue to return to divide and proliferate. Sound like tumor growth? Perhaps evolution turned off that capability to protect creatures from cancer. But now we want to regain the ability so we can get an adult organ to regrow itself. Targets are damaged heart tissue and muscular dystrophy. Applications for humans are years off.
Carolyn
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