Man Severs Finger, Grows New One

[BurnSide]

This is utterly amazing. I could not believe it when i read it. The implications are simply enormous.

In short, this guy stuck his finger in a fan, and severed the entire top of it. Nail, gone. Fortunately his brother was a Harvard surgeon who knew a thing or two about the healing properties of Pig Cells. He suggested the man rub essense of Pig Bladder on the wound and.. seriously this is unbelievable, he regrew the entire fingertip within 4 months, good as new.

Read on.

Regeneration recipe: Pinch of pig, cell of lizard

Researchers look to porcine bladders, salamanders, mice to regrow limbs

Updated: 8:19 a.m. ET Feb 19, 2007

Researchers are trying to find ways to regrow fingers — and someday, even limbs — with tricks that sound like magic spells from a Harry Potter novel.

There’s the guy who sliced off a fingertip but grew it back, after he treated the wound with an extract of pig bladder. And the scientists who grow extra arms on salamanders. And the laboratory mice with the eerie ability to heal themselves.

This summer, scientists are planning to see whether the powdered pig extract can help injured soldiers regrow parts of their fingers. And a large federally funded project is trying to unlock the secrets of how some animals regrow body parts so well, with hopes of applying the the lessons to humans.

The implications for regrowing fingers go beyond the cosmetic. People who are missing all or most of their fingers, as from an explosion or a fire, often can’t pick things up, brush their teeth or button a button. If they could grow even a small stub, it could make a huge difference in their lives.

And the lessons learned from studying regrowth of fingers and limbs could aid the larger field of regenerative medicine, perhaps someday helping people replace damaged parts of their hearts and spinal cords, and heal wounds and burns with new skin instead of scar.

Four months for a new fingertip

But that’s in the future. For now, consider the situation of Lee Spievack, a hobby-store salesman in Cincinnati, as he regarded his severed right middle finger one evening in August 2005.

He had been helping a customer with an engine on a model airplane behind the shop. He knew the motor was risky because it required somebody to turn the prop backwards to make it run the right way.

“I pointed to it,” Spievack recalled the other day, “and said, ‘You need to get rid of this engine, it’s too dangerous.’ And I put my finger through the prop.”

He’d misjudged the distance to the spinning plastic prop. It sliced off his fingertip, leaving just a bit of the nail bed. The missing piece, three-eighths of an inch long, was never found.

An emergency room doctor wrapped up the rest of his finger and sent him to a hand surgeon, who recommended a skin graft to cover what was left of his finger. What was gone, it appeared, was gone forever.

If Spievack, now 68, had been a toddler, things might have been different. Up to about age 2, people can consistently regrow fingertips, says Dr. Stephen Badylak, a regeneration expert at the University of Pittsburgh. But that’s rare in adults, he said.

Spievack, however, did have a major advantage — a brother, Alan, a former Harvard surgeon who’d founded a company called ACell Inc., that makes an extract of pig bladder for promoting healing and tissue regeneration.

It helps horses regrow ligaments, for example, and the federal government has given clearance to market it for use in people. Similar formulations have been used in many people to do things like treat ulcers and other wounds and help make cartilage.

The summer before Lee Spievack’s accident, Dr. Alan Spievack had used it on a neighbor who’d cut his fingertip off on a tablesaw. The man’s fingertip grew back over four to six weeks, Alan Spievack said.

Lee Spievack took his brother’s advice to forget about a skin graft and try the pig powder.

Soon a shipment of the stuff arrived and Lee Spievack started applying it every two days. Within four weeks his finger had regained its original length, he says, and in four months “it looked like my normal finger.”

Spievack said it’s a little hard, as if calloused, and there’s a slight scar on the end. The nail continues to grow at twice the speed of his other nails.

“All my fingers in this cold weather have cracked except that one,” he said.

All in all, he said, “I’m quite impressed.”

Article continued:

Source, MSNBC

In an August 2005 accident, about a half inch was cut off the tip of Lee Spievack's right middle finger by a gas powered model airplane propeller. He says the finger grew back to normal with the help of an experimental treatment.

[Swandancer]

Very awesome.

I wouldn't want to use pig bladder, but I'd like to know how to regrow teeth. Actually, I've heard that someone in Canada has discovered how to do this, but so far it is only for those who still have the original root structure. Perhaps just a "broken" tooth can be regrown at this time, not one that has been fully extracted.

[Shakezulah]

That is some pretty amazing stuff. It's even more amazing to think about what the future will bring to this. I may just have to try it for myself.

[BurnSide]

Just think, in 15 years of this research, amputees will be able to just regrow the arms they lost.

Phenominal.

[frogfish]

Right now for people who lost entire fingers, their toes are amputated and attached as fingers.

[The Silver Thong]

This is pretty amazing but I do have my doubts as the weather this would be able to grow back a completely severed finger. The finger would have to regrow the bone as well as muscle and tendons. I can see a tip regrowing and the nail regrowing especially with a bit of the nail left, but a nail is not bone and the man probably didn't lose any bone or very little at the tip of his finger. This is promising but very far off from regrowing a funtionable digit let alone an arm. He did only lose 3/8 ths of his finger. As far as mice regrowing bone wow, just maybe but I will be doing my best to keep all my extremities.

I should correct myself. Not 3/8ths of his finger as a whole but just 3/8 ths of an inch off his finger.

Edited February 21, 2007 by The Silver Thong

[SilverCougar]

holy heck! That's just.. weird! But much like. Hey, if they can make it so limbs can grow back... just imagine how it could work with organs...especialy kidneys... No more lists for transplants... just regrow it! Though things like hearts would be trickier..

[frogfish]

Digit regeneration, if ever possible, will be much more complicated than rubbing on some pig cells Like Silver Thong said, it would take much more to regrow bone, tendon, flesh, and NERVES.

[The Silver Thong]

holy heck! That's just.. weird! But much like. Hey, if they can make it so limbs can grow back... just imagine how it could work with organs...especialy kidneys... No more lists for transplants... just regrow it! Though things like hearts would be trickier..

I maybe wrong but I think we have already done transplants from pigs to humans including a kidney. I think we have also developed a pig that can simulate human blood and yah, why not a heart. I love the other white meat.

[frogfish]

We have grown myocardio tissue succefully. Maybe a heart is on its way

[Spurious George]

Maybe he's one of those reptilians people say live on Earth pretending to be humans? I heard reptiles can regenerate limbs and stuff Did anyone ask this guy about the Illuminati!?!

[frogfish]

Or maybe it's just a marvel of modern medicine.

[Spurious George]

Yaaaaa you're probably right

Beautiful pictures of India in you sig link by the way

[frogfish]

Thank you.

Did the man regain full feeling and dexterity (if any) of his finger tip?

[Vague]

It's about time!

How awesome...

[Swandancer]

He suggested the man rub essense of Pig Bladder on the wound and.. seriously this is unbelievable, he regrew the entire fingertip within 4 months, good as new.

[Grandpa Greenman]

I ground off the tip of my finger on a grinder. Took half nail and I could see the top of the bone. It grew back on its own with just a little scar on the end. My Wife just had me keep it clean and soak it every night in some concoction she pick up at the medical supply store.

[chaoszerg]

This may be a break through for all those cheating guys out there. Now if a man cheats on a woman and the woman goes nuts and chops his manhood off NO PROBLEM just rub the extract of pig's bladder on the area wait a few weeks and hey presto you grow another back.

[Ashley-Star*Child]

Well it sounds like future research into pig cells may help people who have lost limbs actually regrow them. That is something worth researching into.

EDIT: Left a word out.

Edited February 23, 2007 by Ashley-Star*Child

[frogfish]

You still would have to regrow bone and nerves. Bone regrowth is painful and can easily turn wrong.

[Spurious George]

Would this kind of treatment be considered kosher/halal? I cant imagine a jew or muslim smearing pig blatter extract on themselves lol.

[Swandancer]

That's something I hadn't thought of, but not a bad question at that. Perhaps they would not be allowed to use this, at least not if they 'knew' of it. I say that because medicines can have so many animal ingredients that a person might not know of.

I have a half-sister and brother-in-law who are strict vegetarians. While everyone else eats turkey on Thanksgiving, they eat Tofurkey. They will not even help wash the turkey roasting pan after dinner because of getting the grease from it on their skin. It would somewhat absorb into the body, thereby being the equivalent to them of having ingested it.