Regeneration
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A torn meniscus, the cartilage in the knee, is a common sports injury, and unfortunately it doesn’t heal well. But researchers in Japan have now identified a hormone that helps repair the cartilage after a surgical treatment.
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Researchers have demonstrated a new technique for helping heart cells regenerate after a heart attack, using mRNA to return the cells to a stem-cell-like state. Tests in mice showed drastic improvements to heart function a month after a heart attack.
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The liver can regenerate itself after taking damage, but whether that ability fades with age is unknown. A new study has found that age doesn’t slow down the liver’s regeneration, and whether you’re 20 or 80, your liver is on average just three years old.
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Tendon injuries are painful and don’t always heal properly. Researchers at the Terasaki Institute have now shown that silk scaffolds loaded with stem cells can help tendons regenerate more effectively.
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Animals like axolotls can regrow fully functional replacements for lost limbs. In a breakthrough new study, scientists have demonstrated how one dose of a drug cocktail can regrow lost limbs in frogs that don’t normally have regenerative abilities.
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After an injury, nerves struggle to regrow completely, leaving patients with reduced mobility and sensation. In tests on rats, researchers have now demonstrated a way to improve nerve repair using proteins from the support network around cells.
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Lizards can regrow their tails, but the new tail isn't quite perfect. Scientists have now used stem cell therapy to let lizards grow better tails – bones, nerves and all – in an advance that could have implications for better wound healing in humans.
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Researchers at Salk Institute have uncovered a mechanism by which stem cells can help regenerate muscles. The discovery could provide a new drug target for repairing muscles after injury or rebuilding muscle mass lost during the normal aging process.
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Unfortunately there isn’t much that doctors can do to repair the damage after a spinal cord injury. But UCLA researchers have shown in tests in mice that injections of a porous scaffold material can help the body patch up the damage.
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It’s normally a leg here or a tail there, but scientists have now discovered one of the most extreme examples of limb regeneration ever seen in an animal – sea slugs that voluntarily detach their own heads and then regrow an entire body from it.
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Osteoarthritis is a painful and fairly common condition that’s hard to slow, so treatment options are mostly limited to reducing pain. But a new study in mice has now found that nanotherapeutic injections into the knee can slow cartilage degradation.
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Newts do it. Lizards do it. Even educated axolotls do it. Regenerating limbs isn’t something many animals can do, but now there’s a surprising new addition to the list – alligators. A study has shown that alligators can regrow part of a lost tail.
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