Hydra is a freshwater polyp with an indefinite capacity for regeneration. Our goal was to identify an inducible promoter to direct the transient expression of downstream genes. The Heat Shock Protein gene Hsp70.1 is highly conserved in metazoans. In H. oligactis and H. vulgaris we identified several Hsp70.1-related genes and heat-shock regulatory elements in their promoter sequences. We tested the heat-shock inducibility of three Hsp70.1 genes and found Hsp70.1a and Hsp70.1c up-regulated upon heat-shock. That way we established the optimal conditions for a maximal but non-lethal transcriptional response. Next, we produced a series of reporter constructs driven by Hsp70.1a promoter sequences and tested them in human cells and in whole Hydra after electroporation. We also obtained a stable transgenic line expressing the construction Hsp70.1a_500::GFP. However, we have not obtained yet any evidence of the inducibility of these promoter sequences, suggesting that they do not suffice to bring the heat-shock inducibility.