Posted by
brad on Friday, August 25, 2006 11:03:07 AM
Behold the lowly flatworm. This cross-eyed, ugly, little creature may be God’s (or evolution’s if you are so inclined) greatest contribution to our current thinking on biotechnology.
It has been known for centuries that the flatworm can be cut into pieces and the pieces can each then grow into a brand new flatworm. What has not been known until very recently is how the flatworm manages this trick.
The answer is stem cells. Adult stem cells.
Scientists at the University of Utah discovered that flatworms (Planarians specifically) have stem cells almost everywhere in their bodies and, more importantly, have factors – specialized proteins – which can enable these stem cells to continue to live as stem cells or to start producing other kinds of cells when and as needed.
The importance of this to humanity is that we too have adult stem cells in our bodies. They have been found and are active in skin, bone marrow, hair follicles, intestinal lining, nasal nerves, and other places. The flatworms are starting to show us how these and all of our other adult stem cells may be controlled and may produce the medical miracles so sensationally promised by embryonic stem cell research.
Yet another contribution of the flatworm is to the argument of when human personhood begins. One side argues that a human embryo is not a human person until after the possibility of ‘twinning’ has passed – a few days after conception. Prior to that point it is not a unique person. The ability of an individual flatworm to divide into many flatworms gives the lie to that argument.
Let’s hear it for the flatworm! A star at the ugly bug ball!