This is what I know…
Random Observations, May 1, 2008
“Re-Growing Body Parts”
(This entry really should be filed under “Astounding Observations”)
The implications…
While tinkering with a model airplane, a man in the United States chopped off his middle finger, just above the final knuckle. The cut was as flat and clean as a butcher’s slice, straight through the bone.
Then, four weeks later… the finger grew back.
???
But why are we surprised? Salamanders do it. Scientists were bound to find out how to replicate the process.
I just can’t believe he grew a fingernail too! And fingerprints….
This man was, evidently, the first beneficiary of a highly experimental treatment. A new substrate material developed from the lining of pig bladders (it looks like a simple white powder) was applied to the man’s severed stump, and, voila: the cells started to grow back—following the form of some hitherto invisible blueprint that we all carry around in us, one would assume.
Given that the new finger seems to behave in a younger manner, when compared to the rest of the man’s hand (the fingernail grows faster, the skin looks more elastic), I can’t help thinking about the ’stronger, faster, better’ voice-over claims from the opening credits of the Six Million Dollar Man television series, back when I was a kid.
What does this re-gown body part tell us about cell growth and replication? Is there panacea in a white powder? What does this mean to stem-cell research?
Why did it take two years before we heard about this? Was, ugh, somebody waiting on a patent? Or was it just about the rigours of scientific methodology, with its replication and side-effects triple checking?
Search for “growing finger” anywhere on line. The BBC is a good place to start: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7354458.stm
Can this technique be used for other injuries?
Can we grow new organs, bone, and sinew?
…
Will the plastic surgeons work out a way to scrape off all the skin on some aging starlet’s face and have it regrow young and elastic again?
…
Will I want to get the procedure, too????
….
In all seriousness, one news clip reporting on the story showed military vets who have been injured in Iraq. Many had missing limbs, of course, but the ones with the horrifying burn scars and facial disfigurements were the most disturbing. Could this substrate override our body’s tendency to develop burn scars and help these men develop new skin, instead?
What kind of medical miracle are we talking about here?
If this one man’s finger grew back in its entirety, nerves, skin cells, blood vessels, bone, and all… and they can make this happen with deeper more profound injuries….
If our cells can remember the framework that is needed to bind together complex human physiological components…and then can accurately re-grow an entire component in all its complexity, in its absence…
If they can perfectly replicate the old structure, only this time it is young again, and better….
I am practically speechless….
(just look at all these ellipses)
This story aired for a moment in February on ABC, CBS, Fox etc., and then seemed to fizzle!!
(I have resorted to double exclamation marks!!)
Okay, somebody tell me: Have I just been reading too much science fiction lately, or doesn’t anyone in the news industry know anything about what this could mean to the future of medicine?
