Grow Worms

If you could borrow one ability from an animal what would it be? Would you fly like a bird, run like a cheetah, or maybe regrow your whole body from a single chunk like a flatworm? Scientists focussed on that third option have discovered a secret of the flatworm’s trick. They identified a single particular cell that contains all the regenerative power the worm needs. This cell, which can be identified by the vigorous way it expresses a particular gene, is able to develop into all the different types of cell that form a whole healthy worm. In fact, transplanting a single one of these restorative cells into worms decimated by radiation was enough to bring them back from the brink of death (pictured during recovery, from 18 days post transplantation, top left, to 65, bottom right). Could we one day repeat this rebuilding feat in humans?

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Zeng and colleagues
• Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, MO, USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Cell, June 2018