Axolotls, with their signature smiles and pink gills, are the celebrities of the salamander world. But they are more than just cute: They might also hold the secret to regenerating human limbs.

Among biologists, axolotls are famous for their remarkable regenerative abilities that allow them to regrow entire limbs and even organs. Now, James Monaghan, biology chair and professor at Northeastern University, has begun to uncover the secret behind the axolotl’s superpower and how it could be used to advance human regenerative medicine.

“It could help with scar-free wound healing but also something even more ambitious, like growing back an entire finger,” Monaghan says. “It’s not out of the realm [of possibility] to think that something larger could grow back like a hand.”

In a recently published paper, Monaghan set out to answer a question that “has plagued the field for 200 years.” How does an axolotl know what body part to grow back? If it loses a hand, how does it know to just grow back a hand as opposed to an entire arm?

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Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University