Michael Levin

Reviewers credit Levin and colleagues with the case for mapping ionic and voltage patterns against anatomical outcomes, since such determinants are largely invisible to molecular profiling³. Silver and Nelson cite Tseng and Levin for the finding that changing a bioelectric gradient induces regrowth of amputated appendages in Xenopus⁴. Yang and Brackenbury point to voltage-sensitive optical probes, citing Adams and Levin and Chernet and Levin, as a route to measuring voltage in living tissue⁵.

Funk cites Chernet and Levin when noting that tumour cell membrane potentials lie in the range of embryonic cells⁶. Yang and Brackenbury, writing on cancer progression, cite the same Chernet and Levin work on voltage measurement⁵. George and Bates report a proposal by Mafe, Levin and Cervera that membrane potential could regulate transcription directly, which would let bioelectric signals coordinate cells across a tissue⁷.

In a planarian review, Durant, Lobo, Hammelman and Levin argue that knowing the genes needed for regeneration is not enough. They stress that cells must also know when to stop, because each worm has a target morphology². Friston, Levin, Sengupta and Pezzulo argue that each cell holds an implicit model of its place in the final form. They cast self-assembly as free-energy minimisation¹.