Learning How to Regenerate Retina from our Cold Blooded Fellow Creatures

#55 2025 The Rowen Report

Dear Subscriber,

There are some real positives to modern medicine that aim to break certain real healing barriers. Drugs are generally not the answer. They are designed to block biochemical processes and keep you operating at a lower level. Nutrients, on the other hand, work to enhance healing and repair, not suppress. But there is another class of “drugs” that might help humans rewrite healing altogether.

Cold blooded animals have retained an uncanny ability to heal. Salamanders, for example, can regrow an amputated limb. Mammals cannot and these limitations are actually governed by often simple control switches. For example, years ago, pioneering researchers found that a mammal, a mouse, could partially regrow an amputated limb by leaving the wound open and reversing the electrical charge on the cut portion, which is similar to how the lower animals regenerate their limbs

Regeneration in lower animals is not limited to limbs, but also to the eye. Zebrafish have the uncanny ability to regenerate damaged cells in their retinas.

There are cells called Müller glia cells in the eyes of animals from fish to humans. These cells form a connection between the layers of the retina, and they remove neuronal waste, and they even help with light transmission. Müller glial cells in fish can differentiate into retinal progenitor cells, which generate new retinal neurons. (Remember, the retina is actually brain substance and not a s imply peripheral nerve. The retina is neuronal brain cells peeking out at the world.

In mammals these cells do not so cooperate. Researchers have discovered why. A protein called PROX1 present in damaged human and mouse eyes inhibits the Müller glia cells from differentiating. This is the case with all mammals. The glial cells are blocked from regenerating damaged cells. But scientists are working hard to overcome this evolutionary encumbrance. They developed an antibody to the protein which binds to and defeats its mechanism. When the antibody was injected into the retinas of mice, it blocked the inhibition of the PROX1 protein, which freed the Müller glial cells to differentiate and vision was restored in the subject animal. Researchers will be looking to move forward with human trials within a few years, with retinitis pigmentosa in the cross hairs.

Folks, this type of medicine resonates with me. I don’t believe in synthetic patented petrochemical pharmaceuticals to simply block an enzyme in your body and forcibly lower your blood pressure when there are tons of natural remedies which can naturally promote a healthy blood pressure. But where we are different than lower animals, and have lost ability for tissue repair and regeneration, work in that area speaks of Star Trek healing.

I am excited about this development. I’ve reported in the past here that brain cells do regenerate, albeit, slowly. For scores of years, it was medical dogma that neurons cease dividing after we leave our youth. Perhaps by studying our fellow creatures, we can learn their “tricks” in keeping themselves competitive in the competitive real world. This exciting research is something to pay attention to as it weaves through the news. I sure will.

To Your Excellent Health!

Robert Jay Rowen, MD