For more than 10 years, Stephen Secor and I have been studying snake genomes to understand the molecular signaling cascades that drive regenerative organ growth in snakes when they feed. This is exciting work because if we understood how these regenerative processes work in snakes it may provide key insight into new ways that we could control regeneration in vertebrates, including humans, which would be relevant to treating many human diseases.
This week in the New York Times, Carl Zimmer published an article featuring our work (funded by the NSF) studying organ regeneration in snakes. The article gives some interesting background on how this work came about, and why it is interesting – check it out by following this link to the NYTimes website.