Good God! This is AMAZING! New methods of Healing...Regrow lost body parts

[masmdu]

WOW!

http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/article/2008-06/rebuilding-troops

Stephen Badylak, a pathologist and fellow AFIRM researcher, who shocked the medical world last year when he reported that a powder culled from pig bladders helped resprout the severed fingertips of two patients in their 60s. Normally, when a person loses a limb, scar tissue forms over the wound, leaving a permanent stub. The pig powder contains signaling molecules that attract cells and proteins known as growth factors and override the scarring process, telling the cells to grow instead.

The pig dust was so effective that, with just a light dusting every other day for two weeks, the fingertips grew back entirely—fingernails and all—six weeks later, Badylak reported. For already scarred-over limbs, researchers have developed an enzyme that eats away scar tissue so they can dust the healthy cells below. With AFIRM’s backing, Badylak next hopes to figure out how to stimulate the growth of more complicated muscle tissues found in arms and legs.

AFIRM won't stop at salamander-like limb regeneration. For injuries to organs, Wake Forest University tissue engineer and AFIRM researcher Anthony Atala (who nabbed this magazine’s 2006 Best of What's New Grand Award for his artificial bladder) is building an inkjet printer capable of creating an entire organ on demand. The device uses cartridges filled with cells from various types of tissue, along with a mix of growth factors and special nutrients, to "print" organs layer upon layer. The printer has so far managed structures as complex as a rudimentary rat heart. Within the next five years, Atala aims to build a portable version for the battlefield that will print layers of skin tissue directly onto deep flesh wounds. For surface wounds, such as burns, the consortium is developing a handheld spritzer that sprays a thin layer of immature skin cells over the wound. These cells, called keratinocytes, are extracted from the patient’s skin and stimulate healing in the wound. In a recent clinical test of the gun on 16 burn patients, all showed "excellent healing" after one to three weeks. The conventional approach of grafting, in comparison, takes just as long but requires three times as much skin and often results in patchwork scarring.

[Schema Thing]

1. I hope Cheney gets the first rudimentary rat heart!

[masmdu]

3. LOL!

[tazkcmo]

4. lol

Demons have no need for hearts as they live off puppy blood and children's souls.

[rateyes]

9. I don't.

[tazkcmo]

2. Wow

Watch for the religious zealots to scream "Cloning! Playing God! Heretics!" on this one. Just amazing, the story and the soon to come reactions.

[cobalt1999]

5. You forgot about the PETA zealots screaming about using "pig dust"

Of course, let one of either group lose a finger and they'll be first in line for it.

[tazkcmo]

6. You are correct! n/t

[eShirl]

7. k&r

thanks for posting!

[medicswife]

8. Amazing!

Thanks for posting this, it's really incredible!!! This could help so many people all over the world. Think about the kids who've lost limbs to land mines!

[Bonhomme Richard]

10. Maybe my old hair back? n/t

[DCKit]

12. You can have the hair off my back. n/t

[LiberalFighter]

11. Should be a major market for confused voters and right wing Republicans..

to replace their missing brain.

[tomreedtoon]

13. Sounds like transplants from Cronenberg's "Rabid."

You know, the movie where plastic surgery helps a porn star survive...but she passes a rabies-like disease across the country, causing a panic? That eerie movie that uncannily predicted AIDS and the response to it, ending with infected bodies being piled up by bulldozers?

Just sayin'...

[undeterred]

14. this is quite amazing

I've wondered about it for a long time. When pre-natal surgery is done- surgery in the womb is done, usually to correct some major problem, the baby is born without a scar. This is remarkable, because the same surgery done after the baby is born would leave a scar. So some genes are present before birth that have regenerative properties.

Its clear that the potential is there for whole organs to regenerate- if a starfish can do it it seems plausible that other animals could do it- but we need the genetic tools. It would be wonderful if this could happen, especially for cancer patients.

[gatorboy]

15. $250 million? What a bunch of cheap fucking bastards.

Why not put a few billion into this??? Hell, they'd probably lose it in Iraq in a month anyway...