Frankenstein fear in tissue experiments

Monday 10 September 2012

Experiments devised by Scottish scientists suggest electricity could be used to regenerate tissue and regrow lost limbs.

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John von Radowitz

Scientists believe electric currents and fields hold the key to major advances in tissue engineering. They may even help people with severed limbs, such as victims of industrial accidents or soldiers, to grow new arms and legs.

Electrical stimulus has already produced some success in stimulating sensory nerve regrowth in people with damaged spinal cords.There is also evidence that bio-electric fields play a role in regenerating lost fingertips, especially in children.But the importance of electricity in healing wounds and tissue repair has been largely overlooked because of its association with Victorian quackery and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, according to Dr Ann Rajnicek."Electricity is key; it's something that has been under- appreciated," she said. "But people still think of Frankenstein and the Victorian age. Even when you try to sell the idea to a research funding agency, they say 'oh no, I'm not sure about that'."In the novel, electricity provides the spark that brings Frankenstein's monster to life.During the Victorian era, when the novel was written, electricity and its biological effects gripped the public imagination. Electrical devices were built that were supposed to treat all manner of ills, from depression to kidney disease and impotence.Macabre stage experiments were also common in which the dead were apparently brought to life using electricity to make limbs jerk or teeth chatter, said Dr Rajnicek.In a show conducted in Glasgow in 1818, the corpse of a man hanged for murder suddenly sat up, causing members of the audience to flee in terror.Dr Rajnicek's research at Aberdeen University has demonstrated the effect of electricity on flatworms rather than human corpses. "We're using flatworms that multiply asexually by spontaneous fission," she said. "The worm snaps itself in two like an elastic band so you have one end missing a head and other missing a tail. Each half reforms, and this is something that has perplexed scientists for hundreds of years. How does a tail know it needs a head or a head know it needs a tail?"We believe the natural electrical field that's associated with the wounding process acts like a compass to tell cells where to migrate. You get a field that points towards the wound and directs cells there."We've also found that there's a gradient – the electrical field is positive but at the very tip of the head of the worm its much less positive, so the animal has natural electrical polarity. We think the stem cells are being directed to build either a head or tail because one end is more positive and the other end is more negative."When a flatworm is cut, electricity leaks out of the wound – and the same thing occurs in all other animals, including humans, said Dr Rajnicek. "The skin is like a battery," she said.In animals that regenerate limbs, such as flatworms and amphibians, the leakage produces an electrical potential that causes cells at the "stump" to regress to an embryonic state. They can then mature into different kinds of new regenerated cells.By reversing the polarity of the electric field at the wound site, Dr Rajnicek was able to produce worms with heads where their tails should be, and vice-versa. Manipulating the field led to worms with two heads or two tails."We're not saying electricity is the only thing that matters, but it is one piece of the puzzle that has been neglected," said Dr Rajnicek.

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Frankenstein fear in tissue experiments

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