Salamanders are unique in that they can regenerate a vast number of clinically relevant body structures as an adult, including their limbs, tails, jaws, sections of the heart, ocular tissues, and parts of the brain and spinal cord.  Unlike humans, they are resistant to scarring and the way their immune system deals with injury favours a regenerative program that faithfully replaces the damaged tissues, rather than employ the inflammation, fibrosis and scarring that usually occurs in mammals.  We are interested in the molecular events during the wounding response in salamanders (Axlolots) and aim to uncover the molecular switches that can direct mammalian wound healing down a more regenerative (“scarless”) pathway. Salamander transgenic technology and genomic tools have only recently become available, meaning that for the first time we are presented with a unique opportunity to tackle the important regeneration questions with modern scientific tools in a wide range of important clinically relevant contexts.