...Regeneration is a process that regrows and repairs parts of the body that are lost or injured. This process mostly occurs in certain types of animals like worms, starfish and sea cucumbers, but regeneration can occur in every species. The type of regeneration differs, as planaria can regenerate their entire body, as humans can only regenerate cells and certain body organs, such as the liver (Chen et al. 1991). Regeneration is important to the animal because it is involved in functionality, and without these limbs and structures the animal would have “locomotor, foraging, reproductive, and/or metabolic disadvantages” (Maginnis, 2006, p. 289). If an animal was to lose an arm and not be able to regrow it, the animal would lack function and eventually die off, this process allows them to adapt and survive within their environment. Like almost every other bodily system or process, the process can be manipulated and changed by different factors. Regeneration can be affected by both internal and external factors, such as nerves within the animal, (Fansa and Keilhoff, 2003) and environmental factors. Environmental factors include: temperature, salinity, pH and many other factors. Dugesia tigrina are flatworm planaria, that live in freshwater lakes,...
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...Regeneration Strayer University SCI 115 Spring 2015 May 8, 2015 Regeneration in biology refers to the process of renewing, restoring, and growing that makes cells, organisms, ecosystems and genomes resilient to damage. “Grow your own... heart, limb, or organ" is about research that is being conducted on the flatworm known as planaria. They have the ability to regrow their head or tail in as little as one week when damaged or cut off. Scientists are studying these worms in an effort to learn how to grow a new pancreas, new neurons, and other body parts. The researcher hopes this research will be an effective way to combat diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and many other diseases that plague human beings. "This promising possibilities of tissue regeneration are being explored in the labs of molecular biologists like Peter Reddien. Reddien's lab at MIT seeks to answer two fundamental questions about planarian regeneration. First: Which cells have the ability to regenerate tissue? And second: How are they instructed to do so" (Garcia, 2014)? Reddien and his group found that clonogenic neoblasts can give rise to new tissue. Clonogenic neoblasts are adult stem cells found in planaria bodies. Their bodies are loaded with these stem cells and are ready to regenerate promptly practically any missing body part. Reddien's lab is also studying how the planaria know which part to regenerate, the head or the tail. One of the researchers, Christian Petersen found that one particular...
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