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Researchers Identify Gene Involved in Regeneration
v1x writes "Researchers at the University of Utah School of Medicine have discovered that when a gene called smedwi-2 is silenced in the adult stem cells of planarians, the quarter-inch long worm is unable to carry out a biological process that has mystified scientists for centuries, regeneration."
Automatically regenerating veal.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Those same scientists later found that they could prompt regeneration simply by holding the lone gene up to a mirror in the executive washroom. Baffled by this, they returned to their labs for further investigation.
In humans we call this cancer.
I will bet john bobbit will be happy when this is finally perfected on humans ;-)
You're missing the point... Cut and paste the first paragraph, then wait. After a few hours, you'll have the whole article here where we can read it.
When I cut off my head, I'll have a clone!
Well I for one welcome our genetically stilted quarter-inch long worms.
It's okay, I guess. Quad-damage is better.
So that's one of the crucial Time Lord genes....
You don't realize how true your words can actually turn out to be!! The most fascinating point of the research, which the submitter omitted completely, is the fact that a homologous gene is present in the Human genome!!
Now, just think of the implications of this research if we can somehow learn how this gene is regulated - no more amputations, no more diabetes type 1, no more any disease where a lost body part is gone forever!
Amazing, isn't it? I love to dream, but the reality may not turn out to be that ideal...but surely something amazing is going to result from these efforts by the Utah scientists.
... when a gene called smedwi-2 is silenced in the adult stem cells of planarians ...
That doesn't mean the gene has anything to do with it's regeneration.
If you silenced a gene in me that allowed me to produce red blood cells would you then say you had found the gene responsible for me being able to respirate (live)?
I'm wondering if this may have anything that could be useful in recovery following wounding. Obviously there is already some way for cells to regenerate to some degree after damage. Maybe you could do something like applying a spray of smedwi-2 to either speed up the process, or allow the body to recover from more serious damage.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Re: worm: afaik the remaining part of the worm (ar we talking lumbricus terrestris?)needs to have a bit or the whole 'ring' structure. So only one part can regenerate.
Re: complex animal: all these scientists found is how to BREAK the mechanism. Like when I was 10, i could take a part out of the alarm clock (but then it failed completely). Until now most GMO's are single gene expressions. (double if you count in the antibiotic resistance, but no things cooperating)
looks like the next generation of the bilderberg group/illuminati/freemasons/real underground rulers of earth - will be immortal, thus not needing to pass down the lineage of the family line. maybe the great dark lord will end up like krang from the turtles
runs to his lab...
They've done things like splitting the ball of cells that you get before it forms into an embryo shape (google: morula, blastula), and semi-splitting it, etc. -i hope not on humans though- and well that worked out fine usually. Later, me thinks goes wrong.
[Ah, anonymous, why?]
The church lately has been very very good in forgiving, the previous pope has said genetic engineering is fine 8-o. He's been convinced by the Africa-needs-GMO nonsense.
smedwi-2 (not quite a catchy name is it?) is in the line of the next aging inhibition, youth sustenance attempts that humanity is so fond of. I wonder what happend to the Telomerase craze of the past. So when genetic modification drugs (probably virii) are going to make a huge entry into the pharma market, we'll be seeing the likes of this one the list. On the positive side, perhaps degenerative diseases like Parkinsons' and like geriatric disorders do have stronger solutions coming up.
No Greater Friend, No Greater Enemy! (Lucius Cornelius Sulla)
And this is a perfect example of why I don't read ACs, let alone respond (normally. I bothered to read your comment cause I'm waiting for something).
The article is where I found out, a worm sliced in two becomes two worms (I'm not too sure about that new part. How do they determine what a new worm is? Do worms have any higher level functions that are able to be used to differentiate one worm from another?). I did a quick google search and snopes search to see if the article was complete bunk and that a worm cut in half DOESN'T result in two new worms. But everything I saw said that, they do in fact result in two worms. So I gave the article the benefit of the doubt (although I do still have my doubts, I can't be bothered to look for a source that I -definitely- know is authoritive).
Just because it appears at slashdot (even if it's in an article slashdot points to), doesn't mean it's true.
I usually don't post on these...
:)
and of course, the technology and the means are probably decades away....
but yah, this might be a cool superpower to have
RB
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
This is grade-school knowledge. Where are you from really?
it's in my head
...they would find the gene for quad damage too.
Hey! That's my sig you're smoking there!
This article comes close to saying that we'll have this in humans soon, probably to keep you interested. Let me set this straight, you won't be able to get a cool regeneration ability.
a. we don't know how this would work with the rest of the human genome
b. we have rules against testing a
c. the technology isn't complete for changing a humans dna
d. we have rules blocking a lot of research into c
e. It would be cool, so it's not going to be publicly available.
On the other hand, this is interesting research, and could help a lot in several fields of medicine, though i believe it would be mainly transplant medicine, and anything usable is still 10-20 years into the future. So get your hopes up for your kids, but realize this, you will die the same way as your grandparents.
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
Don't you mean eighth-inch worms? Cause these ones won't grow back when you cut them in half =)
Dude - worms in Australia are 15 feet long, with massive, sharp, pointy teeth, dripping venom. No-one in Australia has lived long enough to see what happes when you cut one in half :)
till they find the penis enlargement gen...
***Game Over***Insert Coin***
I'm visually handicapped, not enough so that I can't see a large computer monitors, and I know others who are visually and physically handicapped in some way.
I can tell you that they would all welcome a new technology that would allow people who have lost limbs to grow them back or regenerate eyes so they could see. You underestimate the the lobbying powers of Disabled Americans. We have a great deal of influence, almost as much as the AARP and the NRA, and they both have immense clout.
Congress can ignore some of us some of the time but they can't ignore all of us all the of the time. If its proven that limbs and organs can be regenerated by activating such a gene in the human genome then mark my words we'll make them make it legal.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
Planarians are NOT worms like earthworms, they're more related to a liver fluke I'd guess. And you can press one through a screen and many of the parts will survive to become worms. Also, they are trainable, you can teach them to always take a certain path at a fork, or train them to go to the side lit by a certain type of light(red or green) It just takes hundreds of trys to do it right everytime. Want REALLY weird - get this - If you juice and inject a trained worm into an untrained worm, it can learn in only a couple dozen trials to do it right everytime.
I never cut a worm in half in science. Perhaps I was away that day (I never cut ANYTHING in science, I know I purposely took a day off to avoid dissecting a frog one time). Besides which, I'm pretty sure it only works with SOME
worms, because I do remember cutting a worm in half, and I'm pretty sure it died.
So while I never learnt it in science, I didn't let that stop me from performing my own experiments (although when I did it, we didn't have a science class).
It regenerated.
Wow. That's bizarre. If the "new worms" do show the trained characteristics, then it does go to show that memory can be stored quite differently in organisms. And isn't reliant upon a brain (do these types of worms even have brains?). I've heard of genetic memory, but I've never known if there was definite proof for it. This, while it might not be genetic memory, is a memory of a different kind.
Thing is, even if you can regenerate entire limbs I wonder whether they'll match the rest of the body. My guess is it won't for quite some time (after they figure out basic regeneration)
;) ).
Because if the regeneration ends up like lizards and amphibians (or even crustaceans), then it won't. They typically end up with a slightly smaller appendage, or sometimes even _two_. e.g. if a lizard's tail gets notched instead of totally chopped off, sometimes it ends up with two tails.
Having a nonmatching limb or extra limbs might be just as undesirable as having a missing limb.
A "freaky" limb could be perceived as "bad genes", whereas having a missing limb might not be (then again it could be a sign of genes for stupidity/carelessness though
Maybe the really rich would be able to go about their lives while getting a regen-lab to keep growing replacement limbs/organs for them under controlled conditions till they get one that matches well enough. But the poor will end up with mismatched stuff or resorting to prosthetics...
Hmm, add some rogue neurons growing in a replacement limb and you might end up with a nice B grade movie...
nt
"...but surely something amazing is going to result from these efforts by the Utah scientists." ....yea...ASSUMING that the crazy right wing Utah gov. doesnt step in and stop them...
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
Some theories are proposing that memories are patterns of activity in the brain themselves, not something stored in a location persay. Perhaps something chemical from the learned worms enables the new worms to "lock on" to the correct pattern of behavior more quickly - with VERY simple learning like this, chemical messengers may play a more prominent role.
Hopes are high, I agree. But we have next to no idea why this gene is needed for regeneration. For all we know, it could be a minor but crucial role. For example, perhaps this gene merely acts as a signal, telling cells "regenerate now!", whereas the highly complex machinery that actually carries out regeneration is contained in some other genes. Note that if this were true, the results of the experiments would be the same. Further research is needed.
I recall experiments being done with regenerating animals where cells of certain body parts were implanted in other areas of the body, and ended up with a hand in the middle of the arm and such.
I'm sure you have heard certain extreme cases of malformed humans, like the "elephant man", or some guy in the guiness records who had two mouths. The latter was a case of a siamese twins where one twin's body got absorbed by the other. And we could think of it as "regeneration gone awry".
I'm not really sure if we really want regeneration. Perhaps in VERY CONTROLLED circumstances, like activating regeneration in nerve cells, might help a crippled person walk again. But having someone set its regeneration gene, looks like a very dangerous thing to me.
Can you say "chimera"?
The effect you mentioned was due to an experimental error.
Specifically, the maze used to train the worms were not cleaned and chemical trails were left allowing faster training of untrained worms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_RNA
I shouldn't have cut that finger off before I finished reading... :)
Security is but an illusion of the mind
~M45T3R S4D0W8~
Regeneration is a very complex process and its behavior is not governed by a single gene or protein expression, as it involves a variety of very complex mechanics that are not fully understood. While I'm sure this gene is responsible for part of the regenerative process in worms, simply eliminating one gene and breaking something doesn't mean this is going to translate into a human response. Regeneration research has been going on for many years, and it has produced limited results in rats as some of the mechanics responsible have been found. Further, stem cells don't play the only role in regeneration in more complex animals similar to mammals like the newt; the first step of regeneration is muscle cells dedifferentiating and then differentiating into a new replacement cell type. There are multiple proteins (and multiple genes) involved with this step alone, and it's one of many.
nonsense?
Africa can certainly produce enough food to feed itself with modern sustainable farming. It's problems have been mostly civil strife and partly a global economic system that makes it financially ordained that cash-crop for sale be grown, rather than a nutritionally balanced range of crops.
The first of these problems wont be fixed by GM crops and the second would be better addressed by fixing the underlying problem rather than producing, say, rice rich in vitamin D (an incomplete solution).
The immediate downsides of GMO farming are twofold: Firstly, an enforced tithe to the patent holders annually, which cannot be escaped from or realistically negotiated for a fair price, seeing as GMO crops cannot be got rid of and cannot be obtained from a competitor. Secondly, an eggs in one-basket situation of genetic mono-culture... google for the Irish potato famine, sometime.
And thirdly (THREE downsides), an ethically fucked up situation in which people must pay for the right to work to feed themselves. Very medieval. You can be sure that African nations are not in a position to fairly negotiate with US corporations.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
My +2 Regeneration tunic can be a reality!
If they'll be selling RoRs soon, how long before I can buy a WoW?
Frog blast the vent core.
So what are the chances we will now have Self Regenerating, Near Immortal, Fearless Rats??? Just strap on some inexpensive lasers, and have Bose equip them for all-terrain duty.... Build an army, or replace the family guard dog... Hrmmm...
IIRC until a certain point in fetal development you can cut off pieces of the fetus and it'll heal just fine. This goes beyond the simple stem cell capacity to specialize into whatever is neccessary. The genes that allow this eventually get switched off and we lose the ability. Fetuses heal really well otherwise too, for example early enough prenatal surgery leaves no scars.
:-)
Time to start writing for a grant application for research where arms are chopped off fetuses...
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
Buy stock in Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado! Know what company he plans on starting, know where he works, and buy stock.
Eh, i'd rather they develop fast healing....
The Umbrella corperation denies all reports of human genetics testing.
This is simply an outbreak of the asian bird flu, the quarintine procedures will be enforced.
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Now all I need is admantium claws.
I believe this has been used on physically abnormal but genetically fine embryos and has effectively prevented babies being born with deformities - for example, when the hand was developing misformed, it was removed and a new one grew.
But as the original poster said, it has to be done very early on. It's still experimental, and I would guess that only a small percent of the world's population have access to the hi-res ultrasound scanners required to even see these potential deformities, let alone have access to the specialist surgical teams.
You know this is exactly how the Lizard came about in Spiderman...
Sweet, now we can genetically engineer Wolverine. All we need now is for someone to discover adamantium.
Time to break out the fire and acid!
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
A little while ago Wired had a story on a similar topic, in which a strain of mice was discovered which was able to regrow organs. From the Wired article (which has some neat pictures of regenerating mouse ears):
...
...
Mice discovered accidentally at the Wistar Institute in Pennsylvania have the seemingly miraculous ability to regenerate like a salamander, and even regrow vital organs.
Researchers systematically amputated digits and damaged various organs of the mice, including the heart, liver and brain, most of which grew back.
The results stunned scientists because if such regeneration is possible in this mammal, it might also be possible in humans.
The researchers also made a remarkable second discovery: When cells from the regenerative mice were injected into normal mice, the normal mice adopted the ability to regenerate. And when the special mice bred with normal mice, their offspring inherited souped-up regeneration capabilities.
Heber-Katz discovered the strain in 1998 accidentally while working with mice specially bred for studying autoimmune diseases.
She had pierced holes in the ears of the genetically altered mice to distinguish them from a control group, but they healed quickly with no scarring.
She and her colleagues wanted to find out what other parts of this strain of mice would grow back, so they snipped off the tip of a tail, severed a spinal cord, injured the optic nerve and damaged various internal organs.
The mice seem to exhibit regenerative capabilities similar to that of human fetuses in the first trimester, said Dr. Stephen Badylak, a surgery research professor and director of the Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
"It offers us insight into a more fetal-like healing response, where scar tissue is minimal and regeneration is abundant," Badylak said. "It's a great model to examine healing mechanisms and use that information to see if we can stimulate the same thing to happen in people."
Heber-Katz said she will soon publish her results on digit regrowth in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
New product 'SpreadMe2' is rolled out as a better alternative to Viagra
I love humanity, it is people I hate
One could always hope that an experimental gene treatment might be available for this to to be used for Dubya's "loyal opposition" in the Congress, the court system, and the Press to "grow a pair" in time for 2006 national elections.
Now, just think of the implications of this research if we can somehow learn how this gene is regulated - no more amputations, no more diabetes type 1, no more any disease where a lost body part is gone forever!
;)
Think about it on the negative, too... People's tonsils will grow back after being surgically removed (my tonsils caused severe problems for me when I was younger, after they removed them I had no problems), appendices will grow back, and circumsized people will be in for a surprise
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
thanks h4rm0ny, my connection was down for a day, but I couldn't have said it better.
this is really getting similar to reverse engineering computer programs. for example, when you're trying to document a binary format noone's ever documented before (except the creators, who don't own the right to their creation because of copyright stuff), and you have an unknown bit (at least 8 bits in the real world, but let's simplify it a "bit"), the first thing you try is turning it off to see what happens. this is exactly what genetic engineering is doing now.
[SHOW SOME LENIENCY TOWARDS
And ironically, mine went down shortly after posting. I've just been able to reconnect. It's a shame that the parent was modded down Offtopic though whilst I went to +3 Interesting. It might be nice if the parent had posted more than just nonsense? but there was nothing offensive in that alone. We should always question things...
especially if the pope says it's okay.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
As for tithing and paying for the right to work: First, GMO are (or should be) just an option, and more options are usually a good thing. Second most things work that way, you pay for gas to get to work, buy equipment for your small business, or pay property taxes on your farm, right?
As for cash and the global economic system, that's more anti-capitalist than anti-GMO, so I'll save that for a different thread. :)
I doubt anyone else is still reading this article after all this time, so it's probably just you and me. You don't see GMO as nonsense, and that's fine with me - it wasn't my choice of words. I'm always much more specific in indentifying problems. However, for the reasons I outlined above, I think GMO crops in this context (commercial growing by African farmers) is a very bad idea. I stand by all that I said previously, but I will clarify my reasons in relation to your comments:
civil strife and monoculture are bad, but I don't [think] planting non-GMOs will overthrow warlords or prevent giant fields of the same crop from being planted.
I'm not attempting to prove that they will, but I am saying that GMO crops wont help to lessen the effects of these problems. It doesn't matter whether it's GMO crops or non-GMO crops that have been stolen from your farm really, does it? Solve the violence and corruption and poverty in Africa and the nation can quite easily feed itself. GMO offers nothing to Africa that would help.
Secondly however, planting non-GMO crops will prevent "giant fields of the same crop being planted." Compared to mass-produced, genetically identical crops, even a few fields of a single variety of corn contain an array of variations. And multiply that across a country like Kenya or Uganda. Can you imagine a susceptibility to a disease creep ing into one year's batch of GMO corn? I can. Can you imagine what would happen if most of a continent used that strain?
GMO are (or should be) just an option, and more options are usually a good thing.
Options are a good thing. But introducing GMO crops reduces the options available. Non-GMO crops provide seeds for next years planting. This is how third-world farmers work. Drop a crop for a year or three and it's going to be a slow process building back up to where you were. For a subsistence farmer, perhaps too expensive and difficult. You can't intermingle the crops either, because GMO crops spread and you will be made to pay for any field in which any patented plants are found. This further makes it very difficult to keep options open. Once you've taken up GMO crops, you'll have a Hell of a time going back.
Second most things work that way, you pay for gas to get to work, buy equipment for your small business, or pay property taxes on your farm, right?
With GMO crops, a farmer must pay a fee to an American corporation for the privelege of working to feed himself / make money. Using non-GMO crops, he does not have to do this. This suggests to me that non-GMO crops have an advantage there. I think you can see the logic in that.
As for cash and the global economic system, that's more anti-capitalist than anti-GMO, so I'll save that for a different thread.
I can only assume that you're referring to my statement about third-world farmers not being able to negotiate for a fair price. In the same sentance, I explain that this is because GMO crops cannot be got rid of once planted and that there is no choice of other vendors for them. In other words - a monopoly on an essential good. Re-read your Adam Smith. Monopoly = Break Down of Capitalism.
I think I've said everything I can on the subject of GMO crops now. Hope you see my point of view.
Regards,
-H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.