Human regeneration, would it be possible?

Well, it's about something I've been thinking a while, living in Mexico, I heard of a curious species of reptile (I think, I'm bad at remembering things I don't hear usually) that is found somewhere around almost every lake in Mexico called Axalote or something, the only thing I think of...is that the Axalote is capable of regenerating itself severed limbs after 3 months.
Would it be possible to get the cells that give it the capacity of regenerating severed limbs and adapt them to humans so we all could have this capacity? If so...would it bring benefits? or cons?

P.D. Hope this topic wasn't created before, if so, the respective moderator is free to close and eventually delete the topic.

Human regeneration is a process that happens naturally in the body anyway, albeit on a much smaller scale than regenerating entire body parts. Depending on how bad the injury is, the body is able to kill the germs using your own immune system and "patch up" the wound while a new layer of skin forms underneath.

When it comes to regenerating entire body parts however, that's a different story entirely. The animals which are able to regenerate entire body parts all have one thing in common; the body parts they are able to regenerate have little to no bone structure, like a Lizard's tail or a Starfish's limbs, or are made of a hardened exoskeleton, like a crab's claws.

When it comes to humans, we have bones. Bones do not grow back and our circulatory system is a little too complicated to be able adapt to an entirely new limb altogether without tearing a few muscles. So no, I don't think it's possible.

Agree with that, however, actually about the Axalote (still don't remember the actual name) it was stated that it can regenerate almost any part of it's body (except it's head of course) but it takes a long time, as far as I know, someone I know has seen some of them regenerating entire limbs that have bones (the forelegs, hindlegs)

Axolotl :P

I see where you're coming from, but the big hurdle here is to regrow bones and completely functioning limbs, not to mention adapt the cells to work with humans, which sounds really difficult. It's far more complicated on a human than it is for an Axolotl to regenerate limbs because of how complex our bodies are when compared

Ok, so I was saying the spanish name the whole time, sorry n.nU

From this, I would tell that it's barely possible, but it would take a really long time, not to mention that the Axolotl regenerates it's limbs in around 3 months, if it's ever possible...in a human it would take longer.
Also about the benefits, well...the people that get amputated limbs for certain reasons (namely, a needed one because of infected limb or an accidental one) would regrow one after time...but an enormous con I see is that maybe in the beginning such thing wouldn't be so accessible.

As Gravity Cat was saying the main issue is that our bodies are alot more complex than your average Axolotl. I think its entirely possible seeing as how we can use 3D printers to make working circulatory tissue.

I would say its possible to make a new limb using such technology then graft it onto a person using stem cells maybe but thats not really growing back the limb.

I'm not going to say its impossible for us to do so. I think we are capable of doing so but it will require a very close look at our genetics vs the genes of Axolotl, and other regenerating animals to figure out what is actually needed to do it.

Lets just say we can do it I would imagine it would work like how a baby grows limbs. Basic bones are made from soft cartilage that eventually gets replaced with bone. Something similar for all the other tissues as well. Ideally it would take months and not almost 2 years for a baby (from fertilization).

Sure we humans regenerate ourselves ( only on small damages)
but to think about taking cells from the reptile and using it for us would be very difficult to answer...
That would take months or years of research..

That is like taking cells from a turtle and using it to slow the age process down...
which I probably think they are doing since scientists are mad people. XD

Wolverine LOL that is who I am thinking about.
Piccolo LOL also a good example.
Don't forget about Majin Buu LOL.

Well the genetic DNA or cells of the reptile has to be comfortable with our cells and DNA..... it will be hard to manipulate the cells of a reptile to become that adaptable to a humans. If that were possible I am sure the low class and the middle class would have no access to it.

This topic is very interesting.... finally a topic with no argument :).



Hahahahaha Majin Buu, I crack myself up sometimes.

This sort of thing is what made Curt Connors turn into the Lizard.

I cannot say that regenerating limbs will always be impossible for humans, but there is very little that you can say with certainty will never be done. But I do think if humans could ever do it, it'd be solely because of technology and not through anything natural.

Impossible especially with our current technology. The human body is very sensitive and intricate,
-You need to trick the subjects immune system into thinking that the new limb/parts is not * foreign* otherwise it WILL be attacked and rejected.

Am saying this assuming that genetic limbs and organs of the individual can be artificially recreated and copied and lab environment.
PS:- watched a document on human and sheep cloning which were successful, but rejected because it was supposedly wrong and inhumane.

Oh and if you were suggesting learning from our reptilian friends and I would suggest first experimenting the progress with mice for obvious reasons.

As others have said, regeneration on a large scale is not naturally possible, nor is current technology capable of it. That said, it is entirely possible that some sort of genetic therapy in the future might make it possible.

One thing that is very important to point out, however, is that humans are NOT more complex than axolotl. Amphibians and mammals both have highly developed neuromuscular systems that would make a process like regrowing a limb equally difficult.

While regrowing bones from scratch would probably be the hardest step, regrowing muscles from scratch isn't easy either. Getting all the nerves, blood vessels, lymph nodes, etc. to grow back in the right location would also be a real challenge. Connective tissue like skin, adipose and the extracelluar matrix should be easier than the other things.

Stem cells (grafts?) would almost certainly be involved at some step, since they are the only cells that possess the ability to differentiate into vastly different types like muscle, bone, nerve, etc.

It is possible to make a regeneration of some part of the human body, but the current technology prevent us from doing so. for some of the reasearch paper that i have read it is possible to regenerate human body.

Take for example, when someone have a blister on some parts of their body naturally their will remove the skin and apply some kind of medicine to the surface right, but this medicine actually does not heal nor replace the skin it just to prevent an infection. Gradually we forgot this blister but when we remember it again the blister have just grow a new skin.

this means our body do have the same effect of regeneration but on the small area of the body. Our current technology does not have the ability to fast forward the kind of healing ability.

Our body after been deal with some injury that make some lose their finger still have the information of the lost body parts. To make it happen a new kind of skin cell are needed to regrowth this body parts, and to make the cell active again on the area that have been lost it need to be stimulate with some kind of machine or we could manually stimulate it with small injusry on the affected surface.

But for what i know the current technology for regeneration are still 50 years behind, i just hope they can fast forward it.

I've read until barkblack only so bare with me.

@barkblack, the usage of atom is pretty bad & good, considering an atom is tiny and therefore it's pretty close.

Regeneration as Gravity Cat's already mentioned is a natural process that's integrated in our system already the difference though is that we don't have enough genetical information in our DNA that allows full regeneration of certain parts of the body. We can cut up a finger and it won't grow back. you can do that with a starfish and it'll grow back the entire arm (not sure what happens with the separated arm, if it dies off or grows back the rest of the body..)

@Qrast, scientists have already started growing skin-cells in testtube-racks so them going to organs is just the next step and if I'm right they've already started long ago. The thing is just getting it right, and the problem in this case is they'll need your specific stem cells to reproduce it and also it's not regeneration but actually creating it anew and then implanting it which doesn't even come close to regeneration.

For regeneration to actually happen within the human body as you probably want it will require gene splicing meaning to integrate starfish or w/e other DNA into the human DNA, which is years from happening because human & animal trials are far from happening, while plant & animal trials may happen, the plant ones already having happened decades in the past with corn and other such things. But the main reason for animals & human trials combined to not go forward is because of the loss of human life. and the unknown of what may happen. other parts may be that it just won't work or that the foreign DNA just won't bind/combine with human DNA.

That's my 2 cents.

I don't see the human body itself being able to regenerate a whole limb. I'm sure in the future grafting will become better and perhaps new limbs will be "bio-mechanical" Human skin and blood flowing through an arm with some sort of synthetic bone with electrical jacks to plug into the rest of our nervous system.

Seems a good point, and true, at this point this seems far away...and even if it gets done, as stated earlier, that wouldn't be accesible to everyone.

Also I'm seeing now that this is really more complex than I expected it to be, it can be done, but when? That's the real question.

The current technology doesn't works fast when it comes to things like these, they take a lot of years of research, and the funds to support something like this must be pretty big or there won't be any progress at all, unless someone out there is working in this the exact moment I write, but who knows?

So, it´s possible...but it takes a lot of effort, time and money to do so.

Personally, I believe the current innovation we have tends to lean more on technology than biological. I think we might enter a stage on physical augmentations later in the future somewhat similar to deus ex.

Im currently on my phone ill just add more insight later.