In the 2012 movie The Amazing Spider-Man, a key character regrows his missing arm by imbibing reptilian DNA — but then turns into a monster lizard that Spider-Man must foil. While humans outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe can’t regrow limbs, a new study has uncovered a shared genetic and cellular toolkit for regenerating appendages in fish and salamanders. The work, reported January 22 in Nature Communications, reveals clues about how far back in evolutionary time regeneration appeared in vertebrates.
Interested in how vertebrates evolved — and often lost — the ability to regrow body parts, evolutionary developmental biologist Igor Schneider of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge has focused on