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For: Real America News Updated 27 Jan 2022, 16: 54 pm EST
A team of American researchers managed, thanks to a cocktail of five drugs, to regrow the hind limbs amputated in adult frogs.
The description of this experiment is published in the journal Science Advances and, according to scientists from the American universities of Tufts and Harvard, this study “brings us a little closer to the goal of regenerative medicine.”
Regeneration in an animal unable to regenerate
While most previous studies on limb regeneration had been conducted in naturally growing animals, such as the axolotl, the new findings demonstrate a technique to induce this regeneration in an animal unable to regenerate limbs by itself
These discoveries could serve as a basis for future work that explores pray for regeneration in humans, summarizes the magazine.
The Tufts researchers triggered the regenerative process in African Clawed Frogs by enclosing the wound in a silicone cap, at the one they call BioDome, which contains a silk protein gel loaded with the cocktail of five drugs.
For patients who have lost limbs due to diabetes or trauma, the possibility of regaining function through natural regeneration remains out of reach . “The regeneration of legs and arms is still a thing for salamanders and superheroes,” says a statement from Tufts University.