
{"id":18409,"date":"2015-12-02T07:16:22","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T07:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/research\/is-appendix-a-vestigial-organ\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:36:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T05:06:23","slug":"is-appendix-a-vestigial-organ","status":"publish","type":"research","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/is-appendix-a-vestigial-organ","title":{"rendered":"Is appendix a vestigial organ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is believed that appendix is a vestigial organ and its removal is one of the most commonly performed surgeries. However, two research groups headed by Professor Gabrielle Belz of Melbourne&#8217;s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and Professor Eric Vivier at the Centre d&#8217;Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, France, believe that a healthy appendix might have the potential of saving a person\u2019s life. They explain that the innate lymphoid cells (ILCs), which play a crucial role in protecting people with compromised immune systems from bacterial infections, protect the organ from getting infected during a bacterial attack. Hence, with the protection from infection by ILCs, appendix becomes a natural storehouse of \u2018good bacteria.\u2019 Instead of extreme treatments to repopulate microbiomes, a healthy appendix can help the body to gain a balanced microbiome.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Read more in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2015\/11\/151130130021.htm\">Science Daily<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33313,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"new_tags":[],"series":[],"subject":[2970,2969,2968],"class_list":["post-18409","research","type-research","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","subject-and-nursing","subject-health","subject-medicine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is appendix a vestigial organ? | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It is believed that appendix is a vestigial organ and its removal is one of the most commonly performed surgeries. However, two research groups headed by Professor Gabrielle Belz of Melbourne&#039;s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and Professor Eric Vivier at the Centre d&#039;Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, France, believe that a healthy appendix might have the potential of saving a person\u2019s life. Read more about their research here.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/is-appendix-a-vestigial-organ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is appendix a vestigial organ? | Editage Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is believed that appendix is a vestigial organ and its removal is one of the most commonly performed surgeries. However, two research groups headed by Professor Gabrielle Belz of Melbourne&#039;s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and Professor Eric Vivier at the Centre d&#039;Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, France, believe that a healthy appendix might have the potential of saving a person\u2019s life. 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However, two research groups headed by Professor Gabrielle Belz of Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and Professor Eric Vivier at the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, France, believe that a healthy appendix might have the potential of saving a person\u2019s life. 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