British scientists have been awarded £10m to develop genetic treatments that could enable humans to regrow limbs damaged by accidents or surgery and allow patients to recover from wounds without scarring.

The ambitious project aims to unravel the genetic quirks that allow certain amphibians, such as frogs and salamanders, to recover from severe injuries by regenerating fresh body tissues. By identifying the genetic mechanisms behind such extraordinary feats of healing, the researchers hope to develop medical treatments that do the same in humans.

Enrique Amaya, a tissue engineer at Manchester University and leader of the project, has begun work looking at the regenerative capabilities of frogs. At a press conference in London yesterday, he gave details of one experiment in which he cut frog embryos to see how the wounds healed. “This is a really big scrape. It’s the equivalent of a 20-year-old falling off a motorbike at 70mph,” he said. “But within one and a half hours, the wound completely heals.”

Perhaps the most impressive tissue regeneration occurs in salamanders, which are able to regrow entire limbs, even as adults. Experiments by Dr Amaya showed that when a front limb was clipped off a salamander, the stump formed a ball of cells called a blastema which went on to grow into all the specific tissue types needed to regrow the limb, completing the task in about 25 days. “You can clip it off as many times as you like, it will still grow back,” said Dr Amaya.

If the researchers can tease apart the subtle genetic differences that allow some organisms to regrow limbs and heal without scarring, they still have significant hurdles to clear before developing a treatment for humans. Genetic therapies are in their infancy and years of animal studies would be needed to ensure any treatment did not trigger uncontrolled cell growth, leading to cancer.

Gus McGrouther, a plastic surgeon at Manchester University, said that while the research was in its early stages, the goal of regrowing limbs was not beyond human grasp. “It’s an achievable future, it will eventually happen.”

This first victory is that science has moved forward enough to consider this a reasonable goal.