A celebrated and controversial hypothesis suggests that some biological systems—parts,
aspects, or groups of them—may extract important functional benefits from operating at the …

The ability of animals to regenerate missing parts is a dramatic and poorly understood
aspect of biology. The sources of new cells for these regenerative phenomena have been …

Intrinsic and extrinsic self-healing strategies can be employed to mitigate the effects of local
damage in order to (partially) restore a lost property or functionality and to avoid premature …

Background Corals are capable of launching diverse immune defenses at the site of direct
contact with pathogens, but the molecular mechanisms of this activity and the colony-wide …

The adult human heart does not regenerate significant amounts of lost tissue after injury.
Rather than making new, functional muscle, human hearts are prone to scarring and …

Regeneration, the replacement of lost body parts, is widespread yet highly variable among
animals. Explaining this variation remains a major challenge in biology. Great strides have …

Questions about how and why tissue regeneration occurs have captured the attention of
countless biologists, biomedical engineers and clinicians. Regenerative capacity differs …

Most but not all phyla include examples of species that are able to regenerate large sections
of the body plan. The mechanisms underlying regeneration on this scale are currently being …

Stony corals build the framework of coral reefs, ecosystems of immense ecological and
economic importance. The existence of these ecosystems is threatened by climate change …

In animals, stem cell populations of varying potency facilitate regeneration and tissue
homeostasis. Notably, germline stem cells in both vertebrates and invertebrates express …