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How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

news.uchicago.edu

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Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

#11

Post by aussieguy1234 »

progne wrote: post #5

This technology doesn't seem to be limited to existing limbs and organs. After replacing a missing arm you could add a third arm. A man could grow a uterus since he has the X chromosomes and with a transplant that includes Y chromosomes, a woman could grow testes. Parthenogenesis could become a choice. Another head seems possible. The limits are more likely to come from regulation than a reluctance of people to trans…

So, in other words, if this technology pans out, this could be possible https://mortalkombat.fandom.com/wiki/Goro

Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

#12

Post by LegitShady »

generalizations wrote: post #7

Is this related to any new research? I’ve been interested in this stuff for a while, but this just looks like a rehashing of previous work.

Have you seen Michael Levin's talks about this subject before? It's his team's original research.

Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

#14

Post by agumonkey »

daoboy wrote: post #3

I have seen several podcasts with Michael Levin now and it is really brilliant work he and his team are doing. For what it's worth he also comes across as a really nice guy.

he's

- very patient - much older than it appear (his research is already on trial in the lab maybe :) - has found the way to make days longer than 24h, he's on 1330 podcasts a week

Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

#15

Post by XorNot »

progne wrote: post #5

This technology doesn't seem to be limited to existing limbs and organs. After replacing a missing arm you could add a third arm. A man could grow a uterus since he has the X chromosomes and with a transplant that includes Y chromosomes, a woman could grow testes. Parthenogenesis could become a choice. Another head seems possible. The limits are more likely to come from regulation than a reluctance of people to trans…

Now there's a future society you don't see written about: a standard part of a marriage is the partners exchange immune-compatibilized gonads with their genetic material, so if one partner dies the other still retains the ability to grow viable off-spring from the pairing.

Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

#16

Post by agumonkey »

In a similar topic, peter reddien's lab also made some very interesting videos about regeneration:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=peter+reddien+lab&iax=video...

For people interesting into structural/mathematical underpinnings of living tissue, his videos demonstrated some strange iterated/algorithmic patterns.

For instance, re-grafting an eye slightly shifted, will mess with the regeneration system, and will lead to a ladder of smaller and smaller eyes appearing. As if being out of balance geometrically caused a rippling effect (like a terminal resizing)

Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

#17

Post by lainga »

XorNot wrote: post #15
progne wrote: post #5

This technology doesn't seem to be limited to existing limbs and organs. After replacing a missing arm you could add a third arm. A man could grow a uterus since he has the X chromosomes and with a transplant that includes Y chromosomes, a woman could grow testes. Parthenogenesis could become a choice. Another head seems possible. The limits are more likely to come from regulation than a reluctance of people to trans…

Now there's a future society you don't see written about: a standard part of a marriage is the partners exchange immune-compatibilized gonads with their genetic material, so if one partner dies the other still retains the ability to grow viable off-spring from the pairing.

"Ma'am, I'm here to enforce the terms of the divorce agreement. I need you to take his gonads out of your purse and hand them over."

Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

#18

Post by nerdbert »

goda90 wrote: post #8
progne wrote: post #5

This technology doesn't seem to be limited to existing limbs and organs. After replacing a missing arm you could add a third arm. A man could grow a uterus since he has the X chromosomes and with a transplant that includes Y chromosomes, a woman could grow testes. Parthenogenesis could become a choice. Another head seems possible. The limits are more likely to come from regulation than a reluctance of people to trans…

I imagine for an extra arm you'd need to also figure out how to grow the right neurons to control it.

I get the sense that if it's connected, your brain will figure out how to make it work.

Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

#19

Post by fpiacenza »

farkanoid wrote: post #2

There's a fascinating (in my opinion) TED talk about this featuring the same Biologist, with examples of regenerative experiments performed using Flatworms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XheAMrS8Q1c

This is Michael Levin, same guy from the article.

Re: How bioelectricity could regrow limbs and organs

#20

Post by fpiacenza »

goda90 wrote: post #8
progne wrote: post #5

This technology doesn't seem to be limited to existing limbs and organs. After replacing a missing arm you could add a third arm. A man could grow a uterus since he has the X chromosomes and with a transplant that includes Y chromosomes, a woman could grow testes. Parthenogenesis could become a choice. Another head seems possible. The limits are more likely to come from regulation than a reluctance of people to trans…

I imagine for an extra arm you'd need to also figure out how to grow the right neurons to control it.

The curious thing about Michael Levin's work is that they figured out "top level abstractions" in bioelectricity that tell the body to figure out everything, including the proper wiring. The have grown eyes in the wrong places that figure out how to connect to the brain, and even two heads.

These guys are decoding the actual bioelectrical code that governs morphogenesis, in a way that you don't need to micromanage anything, you just say "grow an eye" and the cells figure out the rest.

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