The mysteries of a salamander regenerating its tail or a sea cucumber mending its organs have fascinated humans and perplexed scientists for centuries. The idea that the human body holds similar mechanisms to heal and repair itself is tantalizing and not altogether impossible. There are powerful cells called mesenchymal stem cells situated on the 50,000–100,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body. These cells carry the ability to initiate signaling cascades that drive tissue repair and regeneration.
In the mid-1960s, Marshall Urist, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of California Center for Health in Los Angeles, depleted all of the mineral calcium phosphate from pieces of bone. Urist took the remaining demineralized bone components and placed them into the muscle of an adult mouse and made the surprising discovery that bone could subsequently form in muscle tissue.1
In the late 1960s, Arnold Caplan, now professor of biology and director ...
