Medicine's Cutting Edge: Re-Growing Organs

Medicine's Cutting Edge: Re-Growing Organs

www.cbsnews.com

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.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
blogs.zdnet.com

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.

Pretty amazing read. It seems kind of unreal to me, regrowing organs and such. Its easy to see the positive effects of this advancement, but what would be the negative effects?

Check out the additional news link:
"Printing organs on demand?"

www.cbsnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Manufacturing body parts.

This guy loses half his finger, applies this powder, and over four
weeks, his finger grew back, blood vessels, skin, finger nail and all.

Here are the videos, both are about 4 minutes long-

CBS Evening News - Growing Miracles Part 1

Google Video Link

CBS Evening News - Growing Miracles Part 2

Google Video Link

This is the future, and its happening now. This is great news for all those
waiting for organs. The Military hopes to use regenerative medicine
to help heal wounded soldiers.

Check out those videos, truly amazing stuff.

Actually it is not completely uncommon to regrow a fingertip. Seems that if a finger is cut off after the first joint from the tip there are many cases of the finger growing back.

I OP'd a thread awhile back about a guy that had his jawbone regrown under the skin of his abdomen. Once it was complete the doctors took it out of his gut and implanted it in his face. Researchers are also taking cells from people and using modded inkjet printers they are actually printing organs in all dimension.

Yes, these are amazing advances and I think we will be seeing some amazing things in the coming years as technology grow exponentially.

Personally as a Christian I believe God designed us to do some amazing things to the point of regeneration of limbs or eyes, etc...It's just a matter of unlocking potential as well as utilizing some of our gifted doctors and researchers.

thanx for the thread i hadent heard of this new advancment yet simply amazing. i cant wait to hear of further developments in this field. starred and flagged.

Well, I think that the tip of a finger is a far cry to the complexity and function of our intestines. To regrow an organ based on its user, you'd need the users DNA to make that organ match.

My vote is still for stem cells, they are our building blocks and the basis for our entire physical self. In the words of the great Peter Griffin: "HOW ARE THEY NOT FUNDING THIS?"

Not bagging the OP, its a great thread, S&F'ed regardless.

Wow, that's amazing! I knew about the advancements for growing organs.. but, regenerating part of your finger... Amazing!

Fantastic!

I actually work in this field, so its pretty amazing that i hadnt heard of this. Cheers for bringing it to my attention.

Just a word of caution though : he says that the powder was basically just ECM, which is the liquid that seeps out of a cut naturally when tissue is exposed after a cut. Using this power can only grow back small amounts of tissue, nothing bigger than a fingertip or so.

If you want to regrow organs, you have to use a technique called tissue engineering.

Tissue Engineering Article

Thanks for the responses and contributions, it really is amazing stuff.

I found some more on "Printing" tissue and tissue engineering:

How to print out a blood vessel

New work moves closer to the age of organs on demand.

A tissue-engineering group has succeeded in creating functional blood vessels and cardiac tissue, using a 'printer' that dispenses cells instead of ink. The work, published this month in Tissue Engineering, is among the first to produce functional three-dimensional tissue using a printer, and a milestone on the way to the goal of printing out whole organs.

www.nature.com

Printing out whole organs on demand is close to a reality.
What do you think might be the positive or negative implications?

Have no fear, they'll find a way to say it's immoral and should be banned. "Hey, let's not be concerned with science and advancement, the Pope and the Bible don't agree with it!"