Nontechnical paragraph: This research project focuses on understanding regeneration, the process by which organisms regrow missing parts after injury. Planarians, which are freshwater flatworms, can regenerate all of their body parts after nearly any injury. Because of their extraordinary regenerative ability, planarians serve as a useful animal for studying how successful regeneration occurs. The research proposed here will uncover chemical signals that allow cells to communicate with one another during regeneration. Experiments will also test the hypothesis that specific types of cells, including neurons and cells of the connective tissue, promote planarian regeneration. A better understanding of regeneration in simple organisms could one day lead to new ideas for treatment of human injuries or diseases that involve cell damage. Finally, because planarian regeneration is accessible to students early in their research careers, the education components of this award will introduce first-year undergraduate students to research and provide local K-12 teachers with opportunities to learn about planarians and to bring these fascinating animals into their classrooms.
Technical paragraph: Regeneration involves the regrowth of tissue after injury through an intricate and finely tuned set of molecular and cellular events. The research component of this CAREER award investigates how cells in highly regenerative animals detect injury and trigger the appropriate regenerative response. In this proposal, planarian flatworms—animals with extraordinary regenerative capacity—are used as a model system. Though planarian flatworms have been established as a valuable model system for the study of regeneration, the identity and source(s) of signals that initiate and modulate regeneration remain unclear. This proposal takes a multi-pronged approach to discover novel signaling mechanisms that regulate regeneration and to identify tissues that serve as critical, underappreciated sources of regenerative signals. The research aims in this project are: (1) to uncover roles for the nervous system in regeneration and stem cell biology; (2) to explore a novel population of cells in the parenchyma (the connective tissue of the planarian) and test the hypothesis that these cells influence stem cells; and (3) to identify potentially novel regenerative signaling mechanisms by characterizing the nuclear hormone receptor complement of planarians. These efforts are integrated with efforts to train undergraduate researchers early in their college careers and outreach projects aimed at introducing K-12 students to planarians and regeneration.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
