Planarians are a striking model for studying regeneration owing to their extraordinary capacity to reform entire body structures from small tissue fragments. This ability is mediated primarily by ...

Planaria are freshwater flatworms that have become a key model for studying regeneration and stem cells, as they can regenerate any part of the body, even the head. But how does the animal know what ...

A team of scientists has mapped the regions surrounding stem cells in planarians—small flatworms that are famous for being able to regrow whole bodies from small fragments—and discovered something ...

If you dissect a planarian (Schmidtea mediterranea)—a flatworm about half an inch long—into 279 tiny fragments, each fragment can regrow into an entire animal. New research from the lab of Alejandro ...

The human body has good reason for its tighter controls. Cells that multiply unchecked are the roots of cancer. “Our hope is to uncover the basic rules that guide stem cells to become specific tissues ...

The same cellular renewal that keeps our bodies healthy might also fuel the growth of cancer. A UC Merced biologist has found that the brain could hold the key to stopping it.

As you age you naturally lose neurons and muscle mass and experience a decline in fertility and wound healing ability. Previous research in animals has offered several potential techniques for turning ...

They found these cells were indeed providing planarian stem cells with instructions regarding their position and function during regeneration, despite being a considerable distance away. "I tend to ...

Flatworms can rebuild themselves from just a small fragment, and now scientists know why. Their stem cells ignore nearby ...

In Lila Guterman’s article “Hope Grows for Replacing Lost Limbs and Outworn Organs” (January 31), Ronald D.G. McKay is quoted as saying that for regeneration biology to contribute to medicine, “we ...