That statement would have sounded brash 20 years ago. Yet scientists studying worms, primarily those called Caenorhabditis elegans, have increasingly found that genes from these simple animals resemble genes in more complex creatures. In addition, the related genes are frequently used in a similar manner. There's some evidence supporting this contention. When cut in half, the worms form blastemas similar in architecture to those seen when researchers amputate the limbs of a urodele.
Planarian regeneration does have clear differences, however.
The most significant seems to be that the worms do not dedifferentiate cells to create the blastema. Instead, planaria turn to cells called neoblasts. Scattered within the planarian body, neoblasts apparently remain in an unspecialized, stem cell state, which enables them to differentiate into any cell type. Wherever planaria are cut, the neoblasts migrate to the site and form a blastema by themselves. The investigators will try to slip genes into the neoblasts or mutate existing genes, then add the cells to worms whose own neoblasts have been destroyed with radiation.