[EmmaHildyard (OP)]

Paul has asked...

Might we be able to use cancer to rebuild limbs?

What do you think?

[evan_au]

Growing a limb requires careful coordination of many different genes generating many different cell types: bone, muscle, blood vessels, skin, nerves, etc. These all need to appear in the right places, at the right time, in the right quantities. This is coordinated by signaling between cells.

Cancers typically have major mutations; among them is the loss of the intercellular signalling which normally regulate cell growth, so cancers grow uncontrollably; normal cells only multiply when their neighbours have died (eg due to an injury).
- So I expect that cancer cells lack the discipline necessary to grow a new limb (or other organ)

There is one sense in which growing a new limb is like a cancer:
- Cancers are generally less differentiated than the specialised cells from which they formed.
- When an animal like a salamander loses a limb, some fairly undifferentiated cells grow in the wound. These then generate the right kinds of differentiated cells necessary for that limb.
- Unfortunately for humans, when we have a major injury, scar tissue grows over the wound, which prevents regrowth of complex tissues like a whole limb
- Numerous researchers are actively working on limb regeneration in humans
- Some have suggested that regrowing teeth may be the first successful application of tissue regeneration...
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_(biology)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_in_humans