When a Harvard team lost its research funding into the axolotl, a 6

Cambridge, Massachusetts — At Harvard, a team of researchers is studying the axolotl, the salamander with the superpower to regrow body parts.

"And we want to find out the secrets, like, the actual, molecular secrets of how they regenerate limbs," Jessica Whited, an assistant professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, which leads the research, told CBS News.

The "hope someday," Whited explains, is that the research will lead them to learn more about potential limb regeneration in humans.

However, that hope faded a few months ago when her team lost almost all its government funding.

It was a dark time until the day a donor stepped forward.

"It definitely had a positive effect on everyone in the lab," Whited said. "Everybody was just flabbergast