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Scientists seek to regrow fingers

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 is 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 US federally funded project is trying to unlock the secrets of how some animals regrow body parts so well, with hopes of applying the lessons to humans. 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.

But that's in the future. For now, consider the situation of Lee Spievack, a hobby-store salesman in Cincinnati, Ohio, 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 misjudged the distance to the spinning plastic prop, which sliced off his fingertip, leaving just a bit of the nail bed. The missing piece, about 1cm 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.

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

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."

None of this proves the powder was responsible. But those outcomes have helped inspire an effort to try the powder this summer at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, on soldiers who have far more disabling finger loss because of burns.

The broad outline is pretty straightforward. The powder is mostly collagen and a variety of substances, without any pig cells, said Badylak, who's a scientific adviser to ACell. It forms microscopic scaffolding for incoming human cells to occupy, and it emits chemical signals to encourage those cells to regenerate tissue, he said.
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