Wired News: Grow Your Own Limbs

Wired News: Grow Your Own Limbs: "Ellen Heber-Katz, a professor at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, was working with mice that had been genetically engineered to develop lupus when she noticed that some of their ears looked weird. She had punched holes in them so she could separate her control from her treatment groups in an experiment. But the holes quickly grew shut without a trace -- not even a hint of a scar.

The missing ear holes confused her research at the time, but the phenomenon launched a whole new career for Katz.

She and her colleagues wanted to find out if other parts of these mice, known as the MRL strain, would also regenerate. So they performed some tests: They snipped off the tip of a tail, severed a spinal cord, injured the optic nerve and damaged various internal organs.

All of the injuries healed, even the severed spinal cord. The results caused Heber-Katz to shift her research from autoimmune disease to regenerative medicine.

Now, thanks to Darpa's call for grant applications in regeneration, scientists all over the country from various disciplines are working together on the MRL mouse."