BAR HARBOR — The topic of the MDI Science Café from 5-6 p.m. on Monday, April 12 will be “A Conceptual History of Animal Regeneration: From Imagining & ‘Knowing’ to Thinking & Experimenting,” presented by Chuck Dinsmore, Ph.D. The program is free and is offered over Zoom.
Regenerative biology and medicine have become the focus of global efforts at elucidating mechanisms underlying the fundamental processes by which regeneration unfolds. But how did we get here?
Dr. Dinsmore suggests three stages of Western thought in which epimorphic regeneration, that is the replacement of complex form following its loss, appears in the literature of the day. Epimorphic regeneration constitutes a clearly distinct form of repair from the more familiar tissue regeneration or wound healing.
The stages proposed are 1) imagining, 2) knowing and 3) thinking with the concept of animal regeneration highlighted at each turn. They represent, the widely separated (3,000 years!) though overlapping periods in the evolution of scientific thinking and evidence-based knowledge about the nature of generation and its surrogate, regeneration.
Examples of the first two stages appear over about 500 years in ancient Greek literature followed by a protracted period of stasis in Western culture. Then a cluster of specific 18th century discoveries occurred; the remarkable regenerative abilities of the hydra and then the salamander upset philosophical commitments to conservative views of the nature of ‘generation’. More importantly perhaps, the exemplary methodology applied to these investigations, the ‘doubtful’ interrogation of nature to my mind, laid the foundations of modern experimental biology.
Retired Rush Medical College professor and Maine Master Naturalist, Dr. Chuck Dinsmore grew up in Maine, attended public schools and received an undergraduate degree in biology at Bowdoin College, where he began research on salamander limb regeneration. He continued his studies at Brown University with a stint at the Hubrecht Lab in The Netherlands, working on axolotl limb regeneration. Dr. Dinsmore spent 5 summers at MDIBL focused on tail regeneration in plethodontid salamanders that he collected locally. His long-time interest in the history of science was intensified by time as a ‘visiting scholar’ at The University of Chicago, with a brief period in Geneva investigating the history of regeneration research in the 18th century. In 2007, Dr. Dinsmore’s book “A History of Regeneration Research: The Evolution of a Science” was published by Cambridge University Press. The book offers an insightful analysis of discoveries in regeneration research, examining the social, historical and philosophical contexts of the major milestones in this field of biology. Considered among the best histories of its kind, the book has been widely praised for its importance not only to development biologists but to historians of science.
The MDI Science Café series is held on the second Monday of the month through May, when the bimonthly summer series will begin.
Our live online Zoom presentations will be recorded and uploaded for those who cannot make the live session. Please note, when Zoom records, it captures the audience as well as the presenter. If you do not wish to be recorded, please turn off your video camera. Audio will still be available.
MDI Science Cafés are offered in fulfillment of the MDI Biological Laboratory’s mission to promote scientific literacy and increase public engagement with science. The popular events offer a chance to hear directly from speakers about trends in science.
We ask attendees to please preregister online at https://mdibl.org/events/science-cafes/ so that we can send you the link to the online presentation.