Michael Levin is a regenerative and developmental biologist at Tufts University in Massachusetts. He has spent most of his career studying how electrical signals travel between cells in the body. Now, he thinks we could use those signals to program our cells to regrow arms, legs, and even faces.

Over at Matter, Cynthia Graber has a terrific essay on Michael Levin's work, and how it fits into the history of regenerative medicine. You won't be able to put it down until you get to the end — which is probably why this article just won the prestigious Institute of Physics journalism prize.


Here's how Graber begins her article:



Regenerating a small body part under special circumstances is one thing, but what if we could regrow entire lost limbs? What if we could signal to our bodies to regrow damaged retinal tissue — or even to regrow an entire eye? Michael Levin doesn't think this is an outlandish fantasy. In fact, he thinks he may be on the path to figuring out how to do precisely that.

Read the whole essay at Matter