April 24, 2014

THREE-BANDED PANTHER WORM DEBUTS AS A NEW MODEL IN THE STUDY OF REGENERATION



Closely resembling plump grains of wild rice set in motion, the three-banded panther worms swimming in  disposable  containers  in Whitehead Institute Member Peter Reddien’s lab hardly seem like the next big thing in regeneration. And yet, these little-studied organisms possess the ability to regenerate any part of their bodies and are amenable to molecular studies in the lab, making them a valuable addition to a field keen on understanding how mechanisms controlling regeneration have evolved over millennia and how they might be activated in humans.