Guest Speaker - Prof. Francesc Cebrià, Universitat de Barcelona

About the research of 
Prof. Francesc Cebrià

Freshwater planarians have amazed scientists since the first descriptions of their great regenerative capabilities reported already at the end of the 18th century. Planarians can regenerate an entire animal from almost any piece of their body in very few days. These remarkable plasticity depends upon the presence of a special population of stem cells, named neoblasts. Planarian neoblasts are scattered throughout the body, are the only proliferative cells and, most importantly, are adult pluripotent stem cells. Upon amputation or injury, neoblasts close to the wound proliferate and differentiate into any cell type required to restore the missing structures. In our laboratory we are interested in understanding at the molecular level how planarian regeneration occurs. Improving our knowledge on planarian regeneration will help us to better understand this fascinating biological process and may lead to significant advances for understanding why other models such as vertebrates possess a limited regenerative capacity and how it may be enhanced.