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. :)"

finally

[rk87]

I do hope this is applied to humans soon. there are way too many people on waiting lists for heart, liver, kidney transplants. Also, maybe this is a new hope for people that have gotten limbs amputated, or were born with defects.

amazing

[Polybius]

Could this be used in conjunction with other gene therapy to reverse birth defects in people like ectrodactyl hands. Cut them off and make them regenerate as a normal hand? Or entire new arms for Thalidomide babies? Would someone blind from birth generate the ability to see or is that too heavily dependant on brain tissue?

A patent opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to ask, but given the penchant of biotech copanies to patent anything that walks crawls or oozes, has this genetic sequence been patented?

Also I've always been fascinated to understand how a regenerated body part knows when to stop growing - visions of Tetsuo's transformations at the end of Akira come queasily to mind.

fuck ethics

[Anonymous Coward]

There I said it. If we can identify these genes in humans, then I say we start clinical trials right away. There are people who are going to die because they've suffered a horrible injury or are waiting for a transplant. Certainly some of them would jump at the chance for life. Do we always have to wait 20 years after a medical discovery before we even see any practical application of it?

Not new?

[corbs]

A quick search for Ellen Heber-Katz shows that these 'super mice' at least, have been known about for quite a while:

We were doing an experiment and my laboratory assistant went upstairs to ear punch the mice and 3 weeks later I went to see how the experiment was doing and when I looked in the cage I was horrified to see that the mice were there, but the ear, the ear holes were not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/1999/living_f orever_script.shtml/ear [bbc.co.uk]

check the date...

My how the US is the leader in biotechnology!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or not.

We hand our software industry off to India, and we put up barriers to the next "new" thing being biotech.

Long live Intelligent Design.
Long live making biotech illegal or un-funded.

I am off to returning to my Walmart job now.

What does this say about evolution?

[shirai]

What's most curious about this is why less complex creatures have an enormous ability to regenerate but more complex ones don't. If it is a matter of a few genes, you would expect that random mutations would impart the self-regeneration trait onto us but evolution has chosen not to.

I can only surmise that for complex creatures, self-regeneration is not only worthless, but is undesirable (since no complex creatures seem to have self-regeneration but many less complex creatures do). This, of course applies to complex creatures as a species anyways. I think I'd find it extremely valuable for myself.

I don't know the answer but perhaps it has to do with the thinking aspect of complex creatures and how that affects mating. I'd be interested in hearing others hypothesize about this.

Re:This is cool and all..

[CrazedWalrus]

Really, if this can be controlled by just changing a dozen genes, then why on earth do we (mammals) not have this ability already?

Because natural selection is a random process. Just because a beneficial feature 'could' exist doesn't mean it will. In fact, there's a good chance that we have many such wonderful features in our genome just waiting to be turned on.

Apparently, we share like 90% of our genome with all of the other creatures on earth. Just think of all of the things they can do, and wonder if we can 'flip a switch' to 'turn on' those features! Five minutes in a lab, and you too could have the regenerative power of lizards, the claws of a tiger, the speed of a cheetah, and the wings of an eagle. You'd look awful funny, though.

Re:finally

[xtracto]

Yes, I remember reading about some experiments (with excellent results) in USA, in which a man got his lost its thumb in an accident and after some days their re attached it to the man successfully (with some specific method).

Then I read that, although all that was done as research, the FDA did not approve the method, so it ended being just that, research.

Seen in 1998!

[Anonymous Coward]

Look like the professor discovered something incredibly similar - about 7 years ago!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/56799.stm/ [bbc.co.uk]

cancer issues?

[nickos]

It does sound great. I just wonder if there is likely to be an increased chnace of cancer with this sort of regerative tissue. Mind you if someone does get cancer perhaps with this technology the affected part of the body can simply be removed and regrown...

Re:Poor mice.

[ErikZ]

Heh. How cute.

So, did you know that when doing research into fixing spine damage, they actually have to break the spines of the rats?

Think about how they do that for a while.

Not completely

[PengoNet]

It just says that other pressures have been greater than the pressure to (keep the ability to) regenerate. Or the costs of being able to regenerate are probably prohibitive.

The competing pressures might include (for example) a pressure to be smart or strong enough not to lose body parts in the first place, or a pressure to develop coping strategies when a limb is lost. Or the pressure to give food and resources to offspring, over attempting immortality. Or the pressure to have more complex tissues (even if they are more difficult to regenerate), although the article sheds a shadow of doubt on this last one. If these competing pressures are great enough, and more importantly, the pressure to keep the regeneration trait is low enough, the trait will simply drift away (randomly mutate) into nonfunctional genetic code. It doesn't mean it is completely undesirable.

More "complex" animals like humans don't lose a lot of body parts on a day to day basis. And those who do, have their (evolutionary) fitness determined by their ability to cope with the loss, rather than by their ability to regain those parts.

Re:unacceptable!

[BoneFlower]

Thats an interesting idea. How much would hormone activity affect what grows back? Hormones are critical when the organs initiall develop after all, it is plausible that they could affect the regeneration of humans who have that ability, of course depending on exactly how the regeneration works.

Time to regenerate.

[jellomizer]

My real question is how long will it take to regenerate? Mice Grow Up rather fast. But if it will take 18 years to regenerate a missing leg, or will it take a year or two? Or what about people who want to do body alterations could they cut their noses in half and make sure they dont heal together and they end up with two noses. Or someone with a serious arm damage. Could this cause them to have 2 forearms and hands?

Coupled with another recent discovery...

[Chris Snook]

As previously reported on slashdot [slashdot.org], scientists have also found it possible to replace blood with ice-cold saline, and revive the subject hours later. In other words, before long it will be possible to survive any bodily injury as long as you get medical attention before brain damage begins. With this, you can then grow back whatever was damaged, too.

I can't find a link handy, but I know that research into preventing brain cells from dying after trauma is progressing nicely as well. Ultimately we'll reach the point where just about any non-catastrophic physical injury is recoverable, assuming prompt medical attention.

When all that's left are death, aging (but we might be fixing that too) and psychological problems, maybe people will finally realize just how horribly we've been neglecting mental health for so long.

its the cancer, obviously

[Xochi77]

Ive already checked the journals on this one, and the research involving the regrowth of toes etc has not been published, so i can't say much about that. However, several papers have been published on heart muscle cell regeneration, and it looks nice. Regeneration of bodyparts requires plasticity in cell type differentiation. Either primary cell types undergo a revertion to a more totipotent form or reserves of stem-like cells multiply and differentiate to form the new bodypart in question. Generaly, this is Not A Good Thing, ie cancer, and so the body has a whole slew of checks and balances to prevent this from occuring. Im guessing that in more primitive organisms, short lifespan and low cell turnover (they're cold blooded) means that the adaptive advanges of regenerating missing bodyparts outweighs the higher risks of developing cancer.

Re:What does this say about evolution?

[Shaper_pmp]

I remember reading something amany years ago that suggested speed of response to injury was the important factor.

Lizards and "regenerating" reptiles generally don't generate scar tissue. Instead, in response to an injury their body slowly regrows the damaged part.

Mammals, on the other hand, prioritise closing the wound to prevent infection - we very quickly form scar tissue which effectively blocks the wound to infection, but also prevents regrowing the damaged part.

I always understood this was an evolutionary adaptation, but I've never worked out why mammals apparently have so much more to fear from infection than reptiles - is it something to do with our relative complexity, or is it a warm-blooded/cold-blooded thing?

Either way, with our longer lifespans, greater ability at saving individuals with serious injuries and our modern disinfectants and antibiotics, I'd be prepared to swap a slight increase in infectability for the ability to regenerate any wound short of a headshot!

Re:unacceptable!

[frp001]

As a matter of fact, I have often wondered about this:
Are Sci-Fi writer visionaries or are they those that inspire scientists?
Take Jules Verne [wikipedia.org] for example, his stories sent people to the moon, featured televisions, subs etc... did he foresee what was to come, or did he set a goal for all those future scientist who read his books when they were young?

Re:amazing

[MyLongNickName]

My question.... if other animals have this ability, and mice can be easily modified to have this ability, why didn't evolution produce this capability in mice naturally?

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?

Re:What does this say about evolution?

[Nicolas MONNET]

There was an earlier slashdot story about the crocodiles' immune system being studied to cure AIDS. It appears that crocs have a very powerful immune system, capable of fending off most infections. This is likely due to the fact that they've lived in very infectious areas such as swamp for millions of years, as well as having nasty territorial fights leaving them wounded very often. As a result, the evolutionary pressure for a powerful immune system is enormous.

"Makes"?

[Have Blue]

The article has almost no details on how these mice were made. It also uses the words "discover" and "create" pretty much interchangeably. So are these mice the result of a deliberate experiment, cutting-edge genetic engineering, or a natural occurrence that a scientist luckily happened to notice as was the case with penecillin?

Re:finally

[ifwm]

I don't. The last thing we need is something like this keeping even more people alive even longer.

At least until we find a way to releive the stress it would put on the ecosystem.

Re:unacceptable!

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

I think most SF-writers extend past advances of science and engineering to the future. Take television, at the end of the 19th century it was possible to record and transmit sound. It doesn't take much imagination to extend that to images. Subs aren't that big a leap either. A diving bell exists since the middle ages.
I really doubt SF writers can predict the future, some simply know their science and can make an informed guess how things are going to evolve.

Brain power

[kettlechips]

The only organ that did not grow back was the brain.

So if you have your brain scooped out and put on a dish,
it would grow back a skull, a neck and a torso with limbs.
Quite thrilling I would say, think about it.

The reasoning being utterly flawless, one may nevertheless experience
a few unreasonable hesitations, but that's only normal
with forms of amusement as innovative as this. Don't worry about that. It'll pass.

Re:What does this say about evolution?

[Suidae]

Mammals have an adaptive immune system, it takes time for it to identify infections and generate antibodies. A slowly healing open wound might allow infections faster than the immune system can respond.

Simpler animals often have a different type of immune system (sorry, I've forgotten what its called, see the crocodile story) that is less flexible, but much faster to kill off infections since it doesn't have to generate new antibodies for each new invader.

I would expect that a good short term solution for humanity is to leave healing alone and allow the fast scar tissue generation scheme to proceed. Then in the event of injuries that require regeneration the procedure can be initated in a clinical environment where infection can be controlled.

Normal cuts and scrapes would heal naturally, but lost limbs would be regenerated by application of the necessary drugs/suppliments in a clinical environment. (although if regeneration effects stick around for months as in the mice in the article one might have to be careful with cuts and scrapes for a while after a regeneration event.

In the far future it might be possible to redesign our immune systems to be effective with full-time regeneration (this would also probably eliminate almost all of the diseases we currently suffer from).

If things go well, those of us alive today may be able to live several hundred years. Thats great, we'll have the oppertunity to see the result of global climate change!

Re:unacceptable!

[Shaper_pmp]

It depends what you mean by "heal". Eg, if you get your ear pierced the open wound will "heal" (close the wound) over the course of a few months to leave a neat circular hole through your ear, with skin on the inside.

If you then take out the piercing, the hole will generally slowly close up, until it's eventually absorbed back into your body and disappears.

So yes, the wound does "heal" (in the sense of "closing the hole") when you take the piercing out (sometimes earlier, like eyebrow piercings which frequently grow out even with the jewellery left in).

However, the actual open wound (in the sense of a hole into your body, not all the way through it) generally heals within a few days or months (depending what you get pierced) of first getting it done.

Re:finally

[gurps_npc]

You have NO idea.

This may save my life personally.

I have slow, chronic kidney failure, originally caused by an over-active immune system. Now that it is damaged, each bit of protein I eat kills a portion of my Kidney, even if it is tofu protein. Eat no protein = starve to death.

I am currently trying to eat a minimal amount of protein each day (40 grams), but is very tough to stay on my diet and even if I do this, my kidney still gets worse just slower.

Luckily with this diet I still have time, possibly even 10 years till total kidney failure (assuming I don't drink, etc. etc). With any luck, they will either have gotten this to work or found a way to at least clone a kidney for me.

Re:Brain power

[KD5YPT]

So... how does your brain get oxygen and nutrient during said time when its on a dish?

Re:unacceptable!

[ZeroPost]

I always wondered by he couldn't just take a dip in a bacta tank to accomplish that. Maybe he just likes the suit too much.

Re:unacceptable!

[bcmm]

Seriously though, this could be amazing for cancer patients. Imagine being able to remove lots of tissue around the cancer to ensure it doesn't spread, and it just growing back. Maybe it will even be possible to do operations like mastectomies without permenant damage.

Re:amazing

[Gewis]

This kind of research has been done before with regenerative mice. Mammals typically don't have this regenerative ability because we traded it for our deluxe immune systems: immune systems the regenerative mice don't have.

Re:unacceptable!

[burndive]

I'm assuming you mean artifical sattellites.

I believe that was Newton [nasa.gov], actually. He postulated that if you fired a cannon from a "very tall mountain" with a great enough velocity, then ignoring the resistance of air, and if it was fast enough, then the curvature of the earth would fall away from the cannonball at the same rate at which it fell to the earth.

Re:What does this say about evolution?

[Evolt's RonL.]

Lizards and "regenerating" reptiles generally don't generate scar tissue. Instead, in response to an injury their body slowly regrows the damaged part.

Just chiming in as a former zoo docent to note (1) that skin injuries (burns and cuts) to lizards and snakes *can* often leave scars, and (2) that the regrown reptile part, (generally a lizard tail), does not usually regen as an exact duplicate of the original.

It's actually pretty easy to spot a lizard with a regrown tail. The texture, color, and size are generally different from the original.

Any word from TFA on whether the amazing mice had similar issues?

"She offered her honor, he honored her offer and all night long it was honor and offer."

Mouse powers

[bar-agent]

Let us see what mice have gained from mad science and meddling-in-things-man-was-not-meant-to-know over the years:

• Regeneration
• Faster regeneration [slashdot.org]
• Longer lifespans [slashdot.org]
• Athletic ability [slashdot.org]
• Raw strength [slashdot.org]
• Parthenogenic reproduction [slashdot.org]
• Larger, more convoluted brains [slashdot.org]
• Immunity to cancer [slashdot.org]
• Glow-in-the dark skin [slashdot.org]
• High-endurance musculature [slashdot.org]
• Immunity to pain [slashdot.org]
• Increased size [slashdot.org]
• Faster learning and improved memory [slashdot.org]

Just think if they made mice with all these abilities. They'd some kind of race of atomic super-mice! I guess all that time as playthings of science had some beneficial effect.

So, these atomic supermice could go in one of three directions: "Here I come to save the day!," "Same thing we do every night...," or "At last we shall have our revenge!"

I know which one I'm betting on. Anybody else scared?

And this last paragraph is so Slashdot will stop complaining about characters-per-line. I give you this summary of the excellent book, The Mouse that Roared:

The tale concerns the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a tiny European nation which "lies in a precipitous fold of the northern Alps." It was founded in 1370 by British soldier of fortune Roger Fenwick, under not altogether honorable circumstances. Practically the only thing that is produced there, and the only reason anyone has ever heard of it, is a fine wine called Pinot Grand Fenwick. Other than this one export, the nation remains happily isolated, a medieval remnant in the modern world, ruled over by Duchess Gloriana XII--"a pretty girl of twenty-two"--and her prime minister, the Count of Mountjoy (also played by Peter Sellers).

As the story begins, crisis has descended upon the Grand Duchy in the form of revenue shortfalls. It is determined that the most effective way of raising money is to declare war on the United States, the pretext for which is the introduction of a San Rafael, California winery of a wine called Pinot Grand Enwick, a provocation that can not be allowed to stand.

As Gloriana explains the aims of the war: "The fact is that there are few more profitable undertakings for a country in need of money than to declare war on the United States and be defeated. ... And in a matter of months, or at most years, the United States is first requesting and then begging its former enemies to raise an army to defend their own territory. It is not unheard of that these defeated foes are able to state the terms under which they will raise an army for their own policing and defense. Those terms have involved the payment of large sums of money by the United States, or the extension of generous credits, revision of trade agreements in favor of the defeated nation, return of shipping, rehabilitation of factories destroyed in the war,