Regenerative medicine

The biology of regeneration.

Why can some organisms regrow damaged tissue while adult mammals largely cannot? That question drives our research.

How we label evidence

Evidence, clearly labelled.

Every claim on this page sits in one of three categories.

Established

Established science

Findings supported by the published scientific literature.

Proposed

Our research

Frameworks and hypotheses that Dimzang is proposing and investigating.

Unvalidated

Open questions

Ideas that remain hypothetical and require experimental validation.

What nature shows us

Learning from regenerators.

Established

Zebrafish

Zebrafish regenerate fins, heart tissue and retina throughout adult life.

Established

Axolotl

Axolotls can regrow entire limbs and parts of the central nervous system.

Established

Müller glia

In the fish retina, Müller glia can re-enter the cell cycle and give rise to new neurons. In mammals, this response is very limited.

Established

Turritopsis dohrnii

This jellyfish can revert to an earlier life stage, a striking example of how flexible cell identity can be.

Proposed

The mammalian gap.

Adult mammals retain some of the same cell types found in strong regenerators, yet rarely mount a regenerative response. We study the biological conditions that may explain that gap, and whether they could be changed.

First output

Müller glia preprint

Our research framework on Müller glia regeneration is being prepared as a preprint. It will be listed in the research archive once posted.

View research archive

Looking ahead

Future directions.

Cellular identity

How cells change state and respond to injury during recovery.

From observation to testing

Mapping a responsible path from hypothesis to experimental validation.