Geneticists have found that the removal of a single gene allows mice to regenerate damaged body parts, as some salamanders do, a discovery that could one day lead to faster healing in humans.
A quest that began over a decade ago with a chance observation has reached a milestone: the identification of a gene that may regulate regeneration in mammals. The absence of this single gene, called p21, confers a healing potential in mice long thought to have been lost through evolution and reserved for creatures like flatworms, sponges, and some species of salamander. In a report published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from The Wistar Institute demonstrate that mice that lack the p21 gene gain the ability to regenerate lost or damaged tissue.
Its really exciting news, if they could temporarily silence the p21 gene during a normal hair transplant, the donor hair follicles should be able to grow back
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