RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| Subject: Listen up, anarcho-capitalists: Grow your own body parts Mon May 20, 2013 9:00 pm | |
| Researchers are closer to understanding what animals need to regrow their body parts, after Australian scientists established the key role of the immune system in salamanders.
Also known as Mexican walking fish, salamanders can regenerate their own limbs, tails, jaws, retina and heart. But the researchers found that if certain immune cells were blocked, the amphibians were unable to regrow limbs, though healing did occur.
"It means that we have turned this perfect process of regenerating a limb into a failure of the kind you would normally see in mammals," said lead researcher James Godwin, of Monash University's Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute.
Published in the Pro-ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday, the research explains the previously unknown role of immune cells, known as macrophages, in the amphibian's ability to regrow arms and legs. Advertisement
The results have implications for humans, who also have these immune cells – it could lead to ways to tweak the human immune system, putting it on a more regenerative path for both limbs and other body parts.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/grow-your-own-body-parts-20130520-2jx45.html#ixzz2Tsu0ox2B
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