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Regenerative medicine harnesses natural processes to replace and repair damaged or missing tissue. The tools used to achieve this are largely derived from nature and I’ve covered some of them in another post. Beyond regenerative medicine, some of the most important medical discoveries and other technologies have been made by observing or adapting nature. With the entire world as a lab and millions of years to perform their experiments, nature has developed solutions to problems that have benefits for humans. Here’s my list of the top 10 natural inventions, that have been harnessed or inspired medical and other applications.

Hearing loss will affect many of us in our lives. In the US between 25-48 million are currently affected by sensorineural hearing loss. This is typically a result of the loss of hairs in the inner ear which initiates a cascade of secondary events including loss of specialized neurons called spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs) which link these hairs to the brain. Cochlear implants can help restore hearing, but without functional SGNs to integrate the implant with the brain, their performance is limited.

Growth factors are small glycoproteins both made and used by all animal cells to communicate with other cells and regulate themselves. Growth factors provide constant feedback to nearby and distant cells, modulating cell behaviour. In research labs, recombinant growth factors are widely used for cell culture. Growth factors such as EPO, BMP-2 and IL-2 are used clinically and novel therapeutics for diseases such as Parkinson’s, osteoarthritis and cancer are in development.