In grade school, I remember I ordered Planaria to slice up for a science fair to show regeneration... they clone themselves after slicing off the head or the tail, or any part of, etc. I was quite intrigued with this project.
[Quote]”The ability of these cells to become whatever tissue the body needs is very similar to the capacity of embryonic stem cells in humans and other vertebrates...”
“I had always wondered what became of that research, and if it had led to anything.”
Experimentation is rigorously controlled. This is both good and bad. The good is that people who might end up as subjects are protected from abuse. Not all experiments or experimenters are good or competent. Some people will risk any amount of injury or death to others to knock off a Nobel Prize. On the bad side, there has been little or no innovation. Approval and funding for experiments takes inordinate effort. Many times the experiment could be long done and proved or disproved by less effort than it takes to get approval. Also, the liability for experiments is huge. Experiments that would encourage the body to regenerate its own organs won’t even pay for the effort required to get approval. Because of the cost of the approval process the objective of all experiments is to develop a treatment. Note: a treatment is not a cure. Cures can only be used once, by definition. Cures do not pay for themselves. Treatments, especially life-long treatments, pay for themselves over and over.
If you stood to gain, would you be inclined to cure cancer or develop a treatment which keeps it from recurring as long as the treatment is used? The one gives you a dust collecting trophy and a few hundred grand. The other gives you the same trophy and a private jet, hot and cold running sex partners for life and people who owe their continued existence to…YOU.