Reddien Lab

Wounds trigger regeneration in planaria, a flatworm commonly studied for its regenerative capabilities. Until now, no molecular connection between wounding and the onset of the regeneration of an entire head or tail in planaria had been identified.

Inhibiting one gene resulted in animals making a head instead of a tail at the site of the wound.

Foundation honors Reddien for the relevance of his work to cancer stem cells.

Reddien is one of 15 scientists to be awarded the 2006 Searle Scholarship.

Scientists at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and University of Utah School of Medicine have begun to understand the biological processes of how the planarian flatworm achieves complete regeneration of damaged tissue.

"Regeneration is one of the great mysteries of biology that has puzzled developmental biologists for well over a century," says Whitehead Associate Member Peter Reddien. But that's changing quickly as researchers bring the powerhouses of modern biological analyses to studying these processes-with the hope that a better understanding of regeneration may eventually find medical applications.

Chop a planarian flatworm in half and you end up with two healthy, wiggly worms. Unfortunately, not so with a lab mouse or fruit fly. Peter Reddien, who joins the Whitehead faculty as Associate Member this August after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Utah, is determined to find out why.