The evolutionary position of jellyfish enables us to make evolutionary ask evolutionary questions. And the other, thinkis every model, every animal, has a unique biology that can give us new insight. Withu studying more and more different animals, i believe we can get more diverse and complete picture of biology. It's interesting to me because i'm totally not a biologist. I'm sure m going to end up saying several times during this podcast, i am not a biologist, and ask very elementary questions.
Biological organisms are pretty good at healing themselves, but their abilities fall short in crucial ways. Planaria can be cut into pieces, and each piece will regrow into an entire organism; but for most advanced animals, loss of a limb becomes a permanent condition. But why should that necessarily be so, if an organism’s genome knows what it’s supposed to look like? Lea Goentoro’s lab has recently produced surprising results that indicate that it’s easier than you might think to coax animals into regenerating limbs.
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Lea Goentoro received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Princeton University. She is currently Professor of Biology at Caltech. Her research involves how biological systems function and develop across a variety of scales, including perception, organization, and self-repair.
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