{"id":620663,"date":"2026-04-21T04:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620663\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T04:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:50:17","slug":"scientists-uncover-potential-pathway-to-limb-regeneration-in-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620663\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists uncover potential pathway to limb regeneration in humans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Scientists conducting a study into limb regeneration in animals have newfound hope that humans could one day regrow lost limbs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Working across three labs, the team was able to compare three species and identify two common regeneration genes and investigate their functions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The group included Josh Currie, who focuses on the Mexican axolotl salamander; David A. Brown, a plastic surgeon who studies digit regrowth in mice; and Kenneth D. Poss, who researches fin regeneration in zebrafish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-3mk41m-StyledText eze0guv9\">Sign up to The Nightly&#8217;s newsletters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1r9pdr5-StyledSubText eze0guv8\">Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>By continuing you agree to our <a href=\"https:\/\/thenightly.com.au\/subscription-terms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Terms<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/sevenwestmedia.com.au\/privacy-policies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The study determined that the genes were essential to the process of regeneration and sparked hope that a future gene therapy based on this information could be used to regrow tissue in humans by mimicking the pathways.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Mr Currie said the collaboration across research fields was a key aspect of the project.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cMany times, scientists work in their silos: we\u2019re just working in axolotl, or we\u2019re just working in mouse, or just working in fish,\u201d he said in comments reported by <a class=\"css-hwy1qg-StyledTextLink ezegcyi0\" data-link-type=\"article-inline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newswise.com\/articles\/for-regrowing-human-limbs-this-salamander-gene-could-hold-the-key\">Newswise<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cA real standout feature of this research is that we work across all these different organisms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cThat is really powerful, and it\u2019s something that I hope we\u2019ll see more of in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Each year, more than one million amputations occur globally; a figure expected to rise with ageing populations and an increased diagnosis of diabetes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The group of researchers are looking into restoring sensory and motor functions of limbs and moving beyond prosthetics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cScientists are pursuing many solutions for replacing limbs, including bio-engineered scaffolds and stem cell therapies,\u201d Mr Currie said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cThe gene-therapy approach in this study is a new avenue that can complement and potentially augment what will surely be a multi-disciplinary solution to one day regenerate human limbs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-9czhig-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">While more research is required before the techniques could be applied to human limbs, Mr Currie said this study was an important step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists conducting a study into limb regeneration in animals have newfound hope that humans could one day regrow&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,137,128,6213],"class_list":{"0":"post-620663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-society"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}