Endogenous Bioelectrical Networks: An Interface to Regenerative Medicine

We all start life as a single cell, which self-assembles into a complex organism, simultaneously scaling up the emergence of both, body and mind. The journey through anatomical option space is not merely a mechanical process of generating complexity: it involves powerful navigational competencies to achieve its goal despite unexpected circumstances – a.k.a., problem-solving. In this talk, I will describe how the behavior of cellular swarms during development and regeneration can be analyzed and modulated as a collective intelligence. This framework allows powerful approaches to reprogramming growth and form which go far beyond the current emphasis on the genetically-specified molecular hardware. We have developed new tools to read and write non-neural bioelectric states – the cognitive glue that binds cells together to expand their cognitive light cone and enable them to cooperate toward specific complex anatomical outcomes. By re-writing these pattern memories, we have shown applications in the repair of complex birth defects, regeneration of limbs, and normalization of cancer. In this talk, I will sketch a roadmap that begins with an understanding of the plasticity and competencies of the agential substrate of evolution and aims toward a radical regenerative medicine in which we collaborate with the native intelligence of cells and tissues.  What challenge would you like to see solved for progress in your field?There are technological challenges and conceptual challenges. The technical ones include better reagents for monitoring bioelectrical state in deep tissues in vivo. The conceptual ones involve abandoning sterile, pre-scientific binary distinctions of “machine” vs. “mind” and the development of the field of diverse intelligence in unconventional embodiments, which will advance biomedicine in the same way that understanding reprogrammable software led to the information technology revolution.