New Hope For Regrowing Severed Limbs, Just Like Lizards

[Alex_Spider]

http://www.sciencegymnasium.com/2013/06/new-hope-for-regrowing-severed-limbs.html

Some lizards and amphibians have the ability to regrow severed tails or limbs--in fact, the blue-tailed skink abandons its tail intentionally to distract predators. But humans, despite our amazing advancements in the field of spying on each other, are typically thought to lack this superpower-like ability. But in fact, we're more like blue-tailed skinks than you'd think!

Back in 2010, a woman named Deepa Kulkarni lost the tip of her finger to an altercation with a slammed door. She was able to grow it back with the use of a powder made of ground-up pig bladder (seriously) called MatriStem which, according to ACell, the company that makes it, "incorporates into the surrounding tissue during the healing process and leaves new tissue where scar tissue formation is normally expected."

Basically, MatriStem works as a sort of scaffolding--it attracts stem cells from, they think, the bone marrow, which comes out and builds tissue on top of the MatriStem powder rather than merely scarring over. It worked for Kulkarni, but it was theorized that it only worked because she retained a bit of the nail on her partially-severed finger.

Dr. Mayumi Ito, a stem cell biologist and dermatologist at NYU's Langone Medical Center, recently published a paper in which he and his team examined exactly how this works, and confirmed the theory about the fingernail. Turns out the human fingernail includes a group of stem cells that promote cell growth--not just the rest of a fingernail, but tissue and even bone. Ito named this family of stem cells "Wnts," pronounced "wints," and found that in mice, these cells produce chemicals that regrew bone and flesh.

So what if, in the absence of natural Wnts, you used genetic engineering to force tissue to produce these proteins? Would the natural effect--regrown tissue and bone--follow?

Amazingly, yes. When they forced the production of Wnts in mice, the team managed to regrow bone and tissue without any of the natural stem cells being present at all. This has huge implications for the treatment of amputations--the experiment was only performed on mice, but if the technique holds true for humans, this could be the beginning of the end for lost limbs. - See more at: http://www.sciencegymnasium.com/201...owing-severed-limbs.html#sthash.4WBelqzd.dpuf

Curt Connors anyone..?

 

[GENERAL RAAM582]

I like where this is going.

 

[Mike_D202]

I remember hearing about this a few years ago. One question: during the healing process, will it hurt? Since I'm going to assume it takes awhile to grow the tissue back, I would expect that it would be an open wound.

 

[Ultimatehero]

ADDING: Now reading the article, I actually thought they were experimenting with lizards... I got my hopes up too fast.

 

[Alex_Spider]

ADDING: Now reading the article, I actually thought they were experimenting with lizards... I got my hopes up too fast.

Well on a sidenote I am relieved this is not the case t:

 

[Ultimatehero]

You mother &#^T# &#&##^ #&#^ and ^@E&#* of the ^##( # ^#^#* I mean god #^#& ^#*# and your #&#&( post!




In case people haven't learned by now 9 times out of 10 I'm being sarcastic. This is not one of those times!!! Or is it?...

 

[Dr.]

“News” stories of medical techniques to restore severed fingertips go back several years. Here’s an article by Ben Goldacre (MD, science writer and debunker) from 2008. A similar injury is described - and Goldacre mentions pigs’ bladder extract and the ACell company (also cited in the sciencegymnasium.com piece).

But as it turns out, it’s not so unusual for severed fingertips to grow back spontaneously (without the help of pig’s bladders) because - in most cases - no bone is lost. A true breakthrough would be some technique that could actually regrow working joints in the fingers or other limbs. And that hasn’t happened yet.

 

[KevanG]

People really need to stop using the word lizard when talking about severed limbs. Especially with the Spider-Man movie that just came out.

 

[Ant-manic]

pig men everywhere