io9
Lee Spievak regrew his fingers from powdered big bladders. While tinkering with his model airplane two years ago, Spievak accidently sliced a half inch off of the middle finger on his right hand — nail and all — in the propeller. Doctors told him he'd never get it back, but his brother Alan sent him some powder derived from a pig bladder. Spievak rubbed the powder on the stub every day for a month and the finger grew back. In four months, the nail was also back, fully formed (pictured). Find out how below.
Turns out Alan Spievak worked in regenerative medicine, and was familiar with Stephen Badylak's work at the University of Pittsburgh. Toiling in the lab, Badylak figured out that extra cellular matrix from a pig bladder (the stuff leftover when bladder cells are washed away), is chock full of biochemical signals that prevent scarring from stunting cells' regenerative tendencies. But he'd never used it on people, so when Spievak rubbed the powder on the nub of his finger, it was untested. But it worked, and an article on the BBC website has got the video to prove it. The question is: how much of a limb or organ could we one day regrow with the stuff?
From the BBC story:
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 . . . They hope soon to start a clinical trial in Buenos Aires on a woman who has cancer of the oesophagus. The normal procedure in such cases is often deadly. Doctors remove the cancerous portion and try to stretch the stomach lining up to meet the shortened oesophagus. In the trial they will place the extra cellular matrix inside the body from where the portion of oesophagus has been removed, and hope to stimulate the cells around it to re-grow the missing portion.As Speivak says, there's only one downside. "The nail grows so fast I have to cut it every two days. Because yeah, this [whole hand] is sixty-nine years old and this [finger tip] is only two years old."So could limbs be re-grown? Dr Badylak is cautious, but believes the technology is potentially revolutionary.
"I think that within ten years that we will have strategies that will re-grow the bones, and promote the growth of functional tissue around those bones. And that is a major step towards eventually doing the entire limb."
Image: Daily Mail
Comments
Now if we could just get some powdered weasel spleen to produce some moisturizer...
That is FUCKIN' AWESOME. Hang on while I cut my fingers off.
So when I turn 60, can I rub the stuff all over my body and turn young again?
Or do i have to cut off nearly every body part and regrow from scratch?
And with that thought, if I cut off an arm and rub he stuff on the appendage, will I grow another me eventually?
I can see a whole new world of America's funniest home amputations opening up.
I practically cut the tip of my left index finger off, and can barely feel anything with it. (remember kids, booze and knife tricks don't mix)
I wonder if the nerves were also repaired.
@Castle1914: "Cut! It! Off!"
@Miranda Kali: Although weirdly, I can't recall seeing anyone do knife tricks who wasn't drinking.
@moff: Usually only happens at a circus. Of course, the knife throwers may not be drinking, but the lovely assistant probably has one before they strap her to the spinning wheel of potential impalement.
@Miranda Kali: oddly enough, I'm also missing the tip of my left index finger. I cut it off as a child climbing on metal shelving with sharp edges. My parents rushed me to a hospital, where they re-attached the tip, which subsequently died.
But apparently you can regenerate the end of a finger particularly easily. Children up to 10 or so can regenerate them unaided so long as the wound isn't sealer with flaps of skin.
Vegans will have to wait until tofu-bladders can be grown in the lab.
...Sorry, Stumpie....
So, say I'm 75, and I want a 'certain part of the male anatomy' to be young and vigorous. All I have to is get the garden shears?
oesophagus..
Wasn't he Big Bird's friend on Sesame Street?
@Belabras: I would also suggest Novacaine. A lot of Novacaine...
@Mathmos: Left middle finger got a 1/8" wide (the width of a saw blade) chunk taken out.
Man if this works so well why do we kill pigs.. just keep cutting off parts and let them regrow...
Infinite bacon....
Infinite, unethical bacon..
@Miranda Kali: Bishop wasn't drinking, but seriously, what kind of effect would that have had on him anyway.
My dad almost cut my middle finger off when I was two, because he was supposed to be watching me while he was building dog house or something, and I must have though grabbing the wood he was cutting was a good idea.
Long story short, not a good idea, dad slept in the basement for a week, and I have a kick ass scar!
@russdanger: for the soul?
What an absolute load of CRAP!
I mean in terms of magic powder from the violated body of a pig. And of course they're going to Argentina (home of the cure for high cholesterol via peas and Italian dressing)for clinical trials instead of a research institute in the UK or France.
I saw the before and after pics from the source material - nothing happened here that wouldn't happen for anyone in similar circumstances. I imagine the packaging for their magic dust is being designed even now.
I wish some of the posters here would put a little more intelligent healthy skepticism into play before putting garbage like this up...
@Miranda Kali:
The article mentions that everything was regrown, nerves, fingerprint, everything.
@bdavis007:
Um, what? Did you watch that video on BBC? The dude's finger tip was gone. There's no way it would have grown back, especially in a man that old. You only get ten fingers; when one's gone, that's it. Unless of course you happen to be this dude, but under normal circumstances his finger would not have regrown as much as it did.
What are we going to do for the Kosher that walk amongst us? We can't get it in Lamb, beef or chicken?
> Lee Spievak regrew his fingers from
> powdered big bladders.
Sad. Me, I only have little bladders.
i showed this post (the first go around) to my fiancee who's a surgical nurse. she said they use this kind of stuff frequently, but it's hard to come by and very expensive. usually it's reserved only for those with severe burns and such because losing a finger isn't life threatening. that being said, I'm sure if you want to pay for it you can get what ever you want (since our health care isn't socialized but that's a different topic) but they won't grow bone, only flesh.
John Wayne Bobbitt lives!
@bdavis007: I was pretty skeptical about this when I found the article yesterday but I dug up quite a few other sources that correlated, so I think it's legit.
Ben Goldacre of the Bad Science blog debunked this story: [www.badscience.net]
Imagine a small cast built around the finger just loaded with condensed powdered pig bladder... it would regrow in a week, maybe
Frakkin' freakshow. Why can't we put all that freak money into suspended animation and cryogenics research like we oughta?
Wasn't this debuged already. He didn't lose any bone or fingernail, just some flesh from the tip of the finger. That would have healed just the same without some miracle powder.
@Bloodboiler: exactly. this is old, and already totally discredited.
Well, it's certainly being publicized. I saw it on our main News on TV yesterday several times during the day. It was also in the newspaper here.
So, does it grow back other things, like arms or heads? Does it have to be put on the stump, or could you just cut your thumb and put this powder on it and grow another penis...I mean thumb?
Wow!
@Mathmos: i actually lost the tip of my finger in a patio door when I was 8 and it regrew itself and it's actually longer than the same finger on my other hand.
I have 1/2 a dozen friends who've regrown fingertips without powdered pigs bladders (yes, I have lots of crazy, clumsy friends), so I'd say this product may assist in healing but isn't what triggers the regrowth.
Does the pig's bladder work if your Jewish?
@Bloodboiler:
I went ahead and watched the BBC video...
LAME...
He shaved off the tip of his finger...
It looks like he even missed the nail (but it is a little hard to see due to the top down view..)
I don't even know why he says the thing about the fingernail... He didn't cut off his finger below the nail matrix..
@catcubed: That's why it's on io9, it looks like science but is actually fiction.
Sadly, his fingers smell like pork rinds now.
Guys, guys, guys. NOTHING has been debunked. They HAVE regrown the bone past the last joint on the finger tip, including fingernails. They developed this stuff at least 3 years ago. One of the doctors who came up with the matrix had a brother who lost a fingertip to a table saw, and his brother's fingertip grew it back, but at the time I read that article, it had not been cleared by the FDA for human use. I guess we're using it to regrow hooves or something...
This has been covered on MSNBC a couple of years ago, and the folks at Boing Boing did a story on it a month ago.
I hope the cost of it comes down in price soon, because I lopped off the last half to three quarter inch of my... (wait for it...) left middle finger 32 years ago on a wicked diagonal, and they did a graft to pull the wreckage back into a half assed finger tip. I have had a really crummy nail for all those years, in spite of the Doc at Mass General saying I would never have a nail. My problem is that to use this stuff, someone would have to remove a lot of tissue that is very close to that last joint of my finger. I think it would likely hurt A LOT until the powder kicks in, and I start growing the new tip.
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