The man who grew a finger

Pretty amazing stuff.

Quote :

The man who grew a finger
By Matthew Price
BBC News, Ohio

In every town in every part of this sprawling country you can find a faceless sprawling strip mall in which to do the shopping.

Rarely though would you expect to find a medical miracle working behind the counter of the mall's hobby shop.

That however is what Lee Spievak considers himself to be.

"I put my finger in," Mr Spievak says, pointing towards the propeller of a model airplane, "and that's when I sliced my finger off."

It took the end right off, down to the bone, about half an inch.

"We don't know where the piece went."

The photos of his severed finger tip are pretty graphic. You can understand why doctors said he'd lost it for good.

Today though, you wouldn't know it. Mr Spievak, who is 69 years old, shows off his finger, and it's all there, tissue, nerves, nail, skin, even his finger print.

'Pixie dust'

How? Well that's the truly remarkable part. It wasn't a transplant. Mr Spievak re-grew his finger tip. He used a powder - or pixie dust as he sometimes refers to it while telling his story.

Mr Speivak's brother Alan - who was working in the field of regenerative medicine - sent him the powder.

For ten days Mr Spievak put a little on his finger.

"The second time I put it on I already could see growth. Each day it was up further. Finally it closed up and was a finger.

"It took about four weeks before it was sealed."

Now he says he has "complete feeling, complete movement."

The "pixie dust" comes from the University of Pittsburgh, though in the lab Dr Stephen Badylak prefers to call it extra cellular matrix.

Pig's bladder

The process he has been pioneering over the last few years involves scraping the cells from the lining of a pig's bladder.

The remaining tissue is then placed into acid, "cleaned" of all cells, and dried out.

It can be turned into sheets, or a powder.

How it works in detail

It looks like a simple process, but of course the science is complex.

"There are all sorts of signals in the body," explains Dr Badylak.

"We have got signals that are good for forming scar, and others that are good for regenerating tissues.

"One way to think about these matrices is that we have taken out many of the stimuli for scar tissue formation and left those signals that were always there anyway for constructive remodelling."

In other words when the extra cellular matrix is put on a wound, scientists believe it stimulates cells in the tissue to grow rather than scar.

If they can perfect the technique, it might mean one day they could repair not just a severed finger, but severely burnt skin, or even damaged organs.

You can see a video of the finger growing back in the attached link...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7354458.stm

Praise the Lord. It's a miracle . . . of science.

What a neat development!

I wonder if this technology will be able to make organs longer and thicker.

Schizophretard wrote:

I wonder if this technology will be able to make organs longer and thicker.

Yes, but it only works if you're willing to cut it off first.

Cool, but once everyone has huge penises who will buy all the Corvettes?

Uriah wrote:

Cool, but once everyone has huge penises who will buy all the Corvettes?

Remember "huge" is a relative term.

I have no need to cut it of first but I bet the less fortunate would be willing.

Uriah wrote:

Cool, but once everyone has huge penises who will buy all the Corvettes?

Women

Schizophretard wrote:

Uriah wrote:

Cool, but once everyone has huge penises who will buy all the Corvettes?

Women

Or not.

I feel left out in this conversation, but at least it's making me feel even better that I'm a girl.

ReinGatto wrote:

Schizophretard wrote:

Uriah wrote:

Cool, but once everyone has huge penises who will buy all the Corvettes?

Women

Or not.

Ok, Junk yards

Schizophretard wrote:

ReinGatto wrote:

Schizophretard wrote:

Uriah wrote:

Cool, but once everyone has huge penises who will buy all the Corvettes?

Women

Or not.

Ok, Junk yards

There you go!