right, the question that has had scientists struggling to answer
may finally have been found; in something as small as a dime.
Turritopsis nutricula, is the only animal we've discovered so far that has the ability to completely reverse its life cycle after its gone through a metamorphosis. Usually after a jellyfish reproduces it dies, but this animal can evade that completely through an adapted biological cell development process.(Ma,2010). That means if this animal is threatened in any way it can revert itself into a simpler organism and reproduce. This process can go on indefinitely rendering it technically immortal.
Now how this animal is able to do this is through a process called transdifferentiation. Simply that means, it takes cells in the body that already have a function and gives them a new one to benefit the organism. We have a similar technique used today for stem research. Stem research takes cells that do not have any function and gives them one. With stem research deemed unethical by many, funding for research isn't heavily supported and slows research tremendously. But, studying this animal might give scientists the ability to figure out how this might be able to occur in humans.
If we were able to understand and hopefully find a way for transdifferentiation to happen in humans; the process could very well make stem research obsolete with a safer more efficient way to fight diseases. The ability that this jellyfish possesses could very well show us how to change unhealthy cancerous cells in the body and reset them to grow healthy and at a much younger state.
Ma,H.(2010).Turritopsis Nutricula. January 22,2013 from www.sciencepub.net/nature/ns0802/03_1279_hongbao_turritopsis_ns08
2_15_20.pdf
when you discuss "stem research," do you mean through stem cells? And what kind of stem cell research is deemed unethical? Why and by whom? I'd recommend expanding on that point there.
ReplyDeleteI would love to learn more about this transdifferentiation. My mother is dealing with terminal cancer at the moment, so scientists and their medical discoveries are the only hope for so many sick people. Think about what you know about stem cell research and what you learned about trnasdifferentiation. Can you make the biological leap in explaining how it might be possible to use the jellyfish studies more efficiently?
I think to write about these new discoveries, we'll trust that you will draw out and project some of the science. Not in micro detail, but in macro detail, such that those of us without science degrees walk away thinking it's possible.