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We as humans have a really limited
regenerative ability. Whether it's due to

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disease or injury, we just don't have the
capacity to rebuild those tissues later in life.

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But what if we could?

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Zebrafish are incredibly similar to
humans. The genomes are more than 80%

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identical. They're highly regenerative,
Zebrafish can regenerate their spinal

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cords, their fins, they could also
regenerate portions of their heart.

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In adult humans, you have a small capacity
to regenerate. In the example of a spinal

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cord injury in a human, cells come in and
try to wall off this damage to keep it

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from spreading and they end up forming
the scar which on one hand is beneficial,

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but it ends up being very anti growth.
There's absolutely no option of

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regeneration past it and that's where
patients find themselves losing the

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ability to walk again.

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In Zebrafish, none
of those kind of negative phenomenon occur.

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You can have a very similar type
of damage of the spinal cord after

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injury, but instead of forming this kind of

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really dense scar, cells actually create
highways or bridges across the injury

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site. With these bridges being formed these
axons are allowed to cross back through

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the injury site, remake connections and
within about a month

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it's able to swim again.

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The genes that are necessary to kind of
drive these regenerative events, they

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exist in humans, but in humans it's
almost like they've become dormant.

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If we can figure out how the cells are
communicating or how they're making this

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Pro regenerative switch, we have the
potential then to ask is any of this

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harnessable in a human? Are there ways
that we can manipulate the human nervous

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system to reinitiate this dormant
regenerative gene that could aid in the

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regeneration after injury and disease?

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What we learn could lead us to
understand something very important in

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human health and discover things that
would allow us to rebuild our bodies.

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