cpjason: This is truly amazing..perhaps worthy of the UM front page. A powder that grows back limbs...wow

CBS) Imagine re-growing a severed fingertip, or creating an organ in the lab that can be transplanted into a patient without risk of rejection. It sounds like science fiction, but it's not. It's the burgeoning field of regenerative medicine, in which scientists are learning to harness the body's own power to regenerate itself, with astonishing results. Correspondent Wyatt Andrews brings you to the scientific frontier.
Three years ago, Lee Spievack sliced off the tip of his finger in the propeller of a hobby shop airplane.

What happened next, Andrews reports, propelled him into the future of medicine. Spievack's brother, Alan, a medical research scientist, sent him a special powder and told him to sprinkle it on the wound.

"I powdered it on until it was covered," Spievack recalled.

To his astonishment, every bit of his fingertip grew back.

"Your finger grew back," Andrews asked Spievack, "flesh, blood, vessels and nail?" Yes

That powder is a substance made from pig bladders called extracellular matrix. It is a mix of protein and connective tissue surgeons often use to repair tendons and it holds some of the secrets behind the emerging new science of regenerative medicine.

Badlayk is one of the many scientists who now believe every tissue in the body has cells which are capable of regeneration. All scientists have to do is find enough of those cells and "direct" them to grow.

"Somehow the matrix summons the cells and tell them what to do," Badylak explained. "It helps instruct them in terms of where they need to go, how they need to differentiate - should I become a blood vessel, a nerve, a muscle cell or whatever."


more info here..click

There's convincing research being done with deer antler regrowth at the moment, which is a lot more believable then a pig protein powder that arrives by mail.

Every year deer and members of the stag family, shed antlers and are able to regrow them and the tissue that rests upon them. Right now, there's about ten different documented experiments being performed using deer family stem cells to explore the foundation of cellular regeneration. At the same time, advances in human stem cells are hinting at a possible gene that is supressed in most individuals but when expressed, can cause regrowth of limbs. They have a few cases of finger tips being regrown, although nothing on a huge scale. Here's a link to a qualified media outlet:

NYTimes Article on Limb Regrowth

Pig bladder powder seems a little bit more fabulation then fact. If the powder is a miracle, it should have already saturated the market. The applications for all the soldiers losing limbs alone would put any company with that kind of product through the roof for profitability and the research would be fast tracked.

"Get your pig bladder powder: It cures the arthritis! Regrows limbs! Gives your hair a lustrous shine!!!"
Somewhere, a man is waxing his mustache and laughing at us.

I read a paper many years ago about powered chicken feet doing the same thing. Nothing came of that either.

Human fingertips can regenerate on their own. You can aid this process with certain bandaging methods and anything that speeds the natural healing process will speed this as well.

The issue is getting this to work with anything BUT the last inch or so of the finger.