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Can\u2019t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech<\/p>\n
For millennia \u2014 since at least the time of Aristotle<\/a> \u2014 medical thinkers have pondered why certain animals like salamanders are able to regrow entire lost limbs, while mammals like us humans have to make due without any appendages we\u2019ve lost.<\/p>\n Now, researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences say they may have cracked the code. In a new study published in the journal Nature Communications<\/a>, they detail a process they say causes bones, joints, and ligaments to regenerate in mammals which otherwise would not be able to regrow tissue.<\/p>\n Basically, the researchers used a two-step process that mimics the way regenerative animals such as salamanders regrow lost tissue after amputation. They pull it off via a process known as epimorphic regeneration, in which lost limbs are first covered by a layer of skin cells. Local cells then rearrange themselves into a blastema, a temporary structure that forms the base-layer for the rest of the limb.<\/p>\n By controlling this limb-loss process with a specially-engineered serum that sends signals to cells, researchers found they can encourage the growth of a blastema in mammals: lab mice, in this case.<\/p>\n