We are truly living in an era of comic book science. You want Doc Ock arms? You can have Doc Ock arms! And now scientists have turned their attention to another concept previously found in the Spider-Man books: the prospect of being able to regenerate human tissue using lizard cells.
As one Dr. Curt Connors will tell you, lizards are very special creatures. They can regrow cartilage without it turning to bone, meaning that, if caught by a bigger creature, a lizard can simply detach its tail, wriggle away, and grow another tail later. Limb regeneration! But, unlike Dr. Connors, scientists at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine aren’t actually aiming to regrow lost limbs using lizard cells. Instead, they think that lizards might contain the secret to curing osteoarthritis.
The science behind it
Osteoarthritis is a condition that causes a lot of pain to the sufferer and there’s no cure for it right now. Could a particular type of cell found in a lizard tail, the septoclast, create a breakthrough in treatment by repairing the cartilage osteoarthritis attacks? Here’s what Professor Thomas Lozito of USC had to say:
“Lizards are kind of magical in their ability to regenerate cartilage because they can regenerate large amounts of cartilage and it doesn’t transition to bone. The dream is to find a way to translate that process in humans because they cannot repair cartilage. This represents an important step because we need to understand the process in great detail before we can try to recreate it in mammals.”
Another cell type called the fibroblast comes into play here as well. According to Lozito, the combining of fibroblast and septoclast cells “laid the foundation for the beginning of the regenerative process.” Exciting stuff!
As you can imagine, Spider-Man fans on Twitter had a field day with this.
But there is probably no risk here of anyone turning into a giant lizard and eating their own son. (Yes, that was a real Lizard story in the Spider-Man comics. It is not popular.) Instead, if all goes well, we may possibly have a treatment in the future that makes life a bit better for osteoarthritis sufferers. Yay comic book science!
(featured image: Sony Pictures)
