Description:

CDB EXPERTS-IN-THE-FIELD SEMINAR PRESENTATION:

"Inducing regeneration"

Lea A. Goentoro, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA

Wednesday, May 11, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM

Simpson Querrey Auditorium, SQBRC 1-230

Abstract: 
It is our dream to someday be able to regrow body parts, like a lost limb or a damaged kidney.  To pursue this goal, research in the Goentoro lab studies animals that, like humans, poorly regenerate, and asks how regeneration can be induced.  In this talk, Dr. Goentoro will present her lab's recent discovery of a strategy for inducing regenerative response in appendages, which works across widely divergent animal species. In cnidarians, appendage regeneration in the moon jellyfish Aurelia was promoted by feeding the amino acid L-leucine and the growth hormone insulin. In insects, the same strategy induced partial limb regeneration in adult Drosophila. Finally, in mammals, feeding leucine and sucrose induced digit regeneration in adult mice. The conserved effect of leucine and insulin (or simply sugar) suggests the role of energetic parameters for coaxing latent regeneration to emerge. The unexpected simplicity by which nutrient factors can induce regeneration provides a testable hypothesis across animals.  

Relevant Publication: 
Abrams, M.J., Tan, F., Li, Y., Basinger, T., Heithe, M., Sarma, A.A., Condiotte, Z.C., Raffiee, M., Dabiri, J.O., Gold, D.A., and Goentoro, L. (2021) A conservd strategy for inducing appendage regeneration in moon jellyfish, fruit fly, and mouse. eLife 2021;10:e65092. PMCID: PMC8782573.

Host: Dr. Yogesh Goyal
Assistant Professor
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology    

For more information please contact cdb@northwestern.edu
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