Regrowing Fingers?

This article primarily relates the story of a craft shop owner who lost the tip of his middle finger. His brother (formerly a surgeon from Harvard) now runs a company that specializes in a formula from pig bladders that promotes tissue regeneration. The formula has been used to regrow horse ligaments but is also approved in use for humans.

The craft shop owner 's finger grew back in 4 weeks, and after 4 months it looked just like his normal finger. (Photos of finger in early regrowth, and now, shown above).

The "magic powder" that regrew the finger is mostly collagen and provides a scaffolding for incoming human cells to occupy and also sends chemical signals to the cells to regenerate. There is a federally funded project coming up to try this treatment on patients who have lost most or all of their fingers and cannot brush their teeth or pick up objects to see if they can grow "stubs" of fingers, not even whole ones, in order to increase their mobility and use of their hands.

Situations such as this are generating more interest in the study of regenerative healing, and how some animals, such as salamanders and some types of mice, can regrow lost limbs. The primary difference between these animals and humans is that instead of forming scar tissue to cover a wound, they form a blastema, a clump of regenerative cells that essentially manufacture a new limb. More research in this area may lead to eventually being able to replicate this phenomena in humans, but as of right now it is still out of grasp.