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Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, identified DARE cells - cells that begin programmed cell death but survive and go on to rebuild damaged tissue.
The work was published in Nature Communications on 4 December 2025 by a team led by Prof. Eli Arama with Dr. Tslil Braun.
DARE stands for Dronc-Activating, apoptosis-REsistant: the cells switch on the fruit fly initiator caspase Dronc but a motor protein tethers it and stops the death programme completing.
In irradiated fruit fly larvae, DARE cells repopulated nearly half the damaged epithelial tissue within 48 hours, and their descendants were about seven times more resistant to cell death.
The finding explains compensatory proliferation, a regeneration puzzle open for nearly 50 years, and offers a possible mechanism for cancer recurrence after treatment.
Apoptosis is genetically controlled cell death that clears damaged, infected or unneeded cells. Caspases - cysteine proteases - drive it: initiator caspases switch on executioner caspases, which dismantle the cell. DARE cells show initiators can also support survival.
Simple Analogy: The fuse is lit, but a clamp stops it reaching the charge - and the cell walks away.
Israeli research university whose team identified DARE cells and published the finding in Nature Communications
Indian laboratory that reported Programmed Cell Revival in human cells in 2025, describing a route by which cells reverse an initiated death process and speed up tissue repair
Parent body of CCMB and India's largest publicly funded research organisation
If tumour cells can begin apoptosis under chemotherapy or radiation and then abort it, the same survival pathway could explain why some cancers return and become resistant to further treatment.
Both the Weizmann and the CCMB findings point the same way: pushing cells back from the brink of death may repair tissue faster than replacing them, which is the basis of the CCMB patents on wound and burn healing.
Fruit fly larvae remain central to regeneration research because their tissues repair fast enough to watch, and their caspase pathway maps onto the human one closely enough to be informative.
GS Paper III > Science and Technology - developments in biotechnology and their applications
General Awareness > General Science - biology and science in the news
What is the primary function of the Golgi apparatus?
Answer: Protein modification
Genetically programmed cell death that removes damaged, infected or unneeded cells in multicellular organisms.
A protease enzyme of the cysteine protease family that drives apoptosis; initiator caspases activate executioner caspases.
The division of surviving cells to replace tissue lost to cell death - the regeneration mechanism DARE cells help explain.
Dronc-Activating, apoptosis-REsistant cells: they switch on the initiator caspase Dronc but survive and rebuild damaged tissue.