Ok, so this is the coolest story I’ve heard in a while… I’ve read about this being done with mice before, but this is the first human case I’ve seen.
Basically, this guy accidentally lops an inch off the tip of his finger. His brother, who is a medical researcher, sends him some powder and tells him to apply it to the finger.
A month later, the finger has completely regrown. Flesh, blood, vessels and nail, regrown in 4 weeks.
And this happened over two years ago.
The powder? An extract of pig bladder, called an extracellular matrix, which triggers the body to regrow itself.
Needless to say, there are a lot of interested parties, and tests are underway to see if it will regrow bones, removed cancerous areas, burned skin, whole fingers, heart tissue, and a number of other things.
The military, who happens to find itself with a whole lot of recently wounded soldiers, is going to test regrowing fingers that have been blown off. In theory, a whole limb could be regrown.
It’s things like this that make me think that maybe medicine is finally making some serious progress.
Yeah. I saw that story on TV a while ago. Absolutely amazing! I mean the guy didn’t lose that much of his finger, but the idea that the body could remember how to regrow all those different parts is just so cool. I hope it lives up to its promise. I know they are also thinking about using it to repair parts of the heart as well. Pretty nifty stuff. I hope the day comes when surgery will be seen as barbaric.
love J.
That’s nifty! I wonder how those heart patients do- I do wonder if they will find any problems with the newly grown tissue- faster aging, problems with function. For instance, heart muscle is pretty complex and needs to be stimulated with electrical charge- I wonder if the new tissue would respond to the electrical signals as well- I don’t see why not, but sometimes things get funky. Still- it’s pretty exciting. And I like the idea that the body is healing itself.