Eli5: if our bodies are able to form entire human beings from scratch, why can’t it grow back organs that have been amputated?
In: Biology
Generating these parts requires specific, undifferentiated cells, in a very carefully orchestrated and intricate process of development. It’s largely designed to all work cooperatively and integrate numerous feedback loops of its neighbors and the larger organism as it shapes itself.
Afterwards, you are left with cells with much higher differentiation and commitment to what it is. At that point, your body is more about patching and surviving than true regeneration.
Regrowing limbs and organs in an established and developed organism is a very, very different context, and one that lacks the signaling cues and needed cells in the right place to carry it out.
Latest Answers