Australian Science Makes the Regenerating Mouse

FruFox writes "Australian scientists have created mice which can regenerate absolutely any tissue except for the tissues of the brain. Heart, lungs, entire limbs, you name it. This is the first time this has been seen in mammals. The potential implications are positively mammoth. I thought this warranted attention. :)"

Comments

Re:Obviously

[Freexe]

I think it just means another civil war. People will die for the right not to die

(Presuming governments try and withhold the technology).

People will die in mass over population if the government give us this technology.

People will die in riots if the government give us the technology but try to control over population with laws controling birth rights

It at time like this I wish I hadn't read Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Red Mars' series.

Military interest

[Macka]

Though in this case I reckon the Military could get very in this kind of 'medicine'. Imagine an army of self healing soldiers. Get a leg blown off and then grow it back.

Re:Skepsis?

[eric.t.f.bat]

... And, being a Murdoch rag, it's not particularly well respected, either. I find the Sydney Morning Herald, aka the Sadly Moaning Horrid, to be a better paper all round, even if it does have a habit of riding particular bandwagons until the wheels fall off (*coughReneRivkincough*).

Re:finally

[FooAtWFU]

You guessed it, the pharmaceutical industry. After all, anti-rejection drugs are a tidy little market for them.

So they lose one tidy little market. So what? You don't think that the potential market in pro-regeneration drugs (and other drugs used during these sorts of surgeries) looks the least bit enticing, and potentially even MORE lucrative, than anti-rejection drugs? If they have ten to fifteen (or more) years, don't you think they will conduct studies left and right and get with the times? Pharmaceutical companies are not exactly the recording industry, they have some smart people working there...

Re:amazing

[Dasher42]

Remember, evolution doesn't necessarily favor the fittest. It favors the most readily reproducible. It's also lossy. When you rely on one major advantage to get by, others can deteriorate.

Serendipity, followed by hard work

[The Fun Guy]

From Dr. Heber-Katz's website at the Wistar Institute:

Wound Healing in Mice: In the process of carrying out an autoimmunity experiment, the Heber-Katz research team noted that in the MRL strain of mice, punched ear holes used for long term identification rapidly closed without any sign of scarring. Besides lack of scarring when the ear hole closed, a blastema formed and new hair follicles and cartilage grew back, processes not generally seen in adult mammals though thought to be part of a regenerative process seen in amphibians. The laboratory has been actively pursuing the identification of genes involved in this trait along with the mechanisms that allow this healing to take place. They found that the matrix metalloproteinases are upregulated early after wounding and just prior to blastema formation and that the molecule Pref-1 is upregulated late after wounding and just as the blastema is beginning to redifferentiate into mature cells. These studies have led the research team to examine multiple tissues that show the unusual regenerative capacity seen in this mouse.

As my old high-school physics teacher used to say, the Princes of Serendip paid that lab a visit. Luck got the ball rolling, but hard work made it into something with potential. It took an observant, inquiring mind to note that the ear holes were closing, and to choose to investigate it further. Fortune favors the prepared mind, especially in science.

Re:amazing

[radtea]

Is there some nasty side effect that makes it better to NOT have this ability and put up with loss of limbs, and other damage?

There is another mechanism for dealing with major injuries: development of scar tissue. Scaring happens much faster and takes fewer resources than regeneration. There appears to be an anti-correlation between scaring and regeneration: animals that scar don't regenerate and vice-versa, so there may be some overloading of the genes that control both processes, making them mutually incompatible.

Given that survivable loss of limbs and survivable loss of internal organs is a relatively rare occurence for most mammals, it is likely that scaring has been favoured over regeneration in our evolutionary history as it is the mechanism that gives injured organisms the greatest chance of survival.

In particular, mammals lead active lives because we are warm blooded, and therefore need to hunt/scavange/forage regularly for food to keep our body temperature stable. This means that rapid healing is a big advantage, so scaring is favoured. Modern reptile are cold-blooded, and therefore can sustain much longer periods without food, making them more able to take the time out of their busy schedule to regenerate.