Who Wants to Live Forever
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Homo sapiens have remarkable regenerative abilities—wounds heal, bone fractures “thread” back together, and some organs can even regrow from devastating injury—but none of these biological bonafides compares to the healing power of the humble starlet sea anemone (Nematostella vectensis).
Located along the eastern coast of the U.S., with a few introduced populations scattered along the western U.S. coast and the southeast coast of Britain, this sea anemone is a member of the sea-dwelling phylum Cnidaria, which is well-known for its full-body regenerative abilities—so much so that some animals in this phylum, such as the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, are functionally immortal. Because of this ability to seemingly defy the aging process, these animals have figured prominently in anti-aging research.
Now, in a new study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers from the University of Vienna have possibly identified small, multi-potent cells in scarlet sea anemones that basically allow cnidarians to continually drink from the proverbial fountain of youth. In humans, stems cells allow limited regeneration of certain cells in our body (which is why they’re central to the exploration of anti-aging therapies), however, other animals display much greater, whole-body regenerative abilities compared to us humans.
Here is the study
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado0424
