Tech | April 15, 2008 | 54 comments

Man regenerates lost fingertip using magic stem cell powder

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floggingtiffany
All it took was a sprinkling of powder and four weeks. The man was able to regrow not only his skin, but also the nail and the bone. The powder contains an extracellular matrix made from pig bladders that tells the body to regenerate, summoning up even adult stem cells.
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54 comments // Man regenerates lost fingertip using magic stem cell powder

  • gargoylex
  • wannabedoc
    • 0
      wannabedoc  
    • Um... adult stem cells? As in... the cells derived from bone marrow that can become like any type of cell? Like... as long as it's a blood cell.

      Yes, I'm sure to all those people saying "read the article- it says ADULT stem cells you retard" could do with studying some scientific fact.

      It said it summoned the help off.
      You can presume that meant: It required embryonic stem cells to spark of the process.
      You can also presume that meant: Healing requires blood.

      Please can you not suddenly latch onto a sentence in an article and manipulate it to prove yourselves "right". Please find out facts before you talk utter tosh.

    • 3 years ago
  • ivxx
  • DevHalena
    • 0
      DevHalena  
    • I must agree with Slamber. Stem Cell research has been kept on the back burner for long enough. Just imagine what this could do for amputees or the men and women in Iraq that have been injured.

    • 3 years ago
  • gargoylex
  • gargoylex
  • EmperorThan
  • Wildfire775
  • karrde
    • 0
      karrde  
    • I found this story to be very exciting, then I started reading the comments. Please change the name of this site to PresidentBushBashing.com

      I noticed that this product used our own adult stem cells to regrow this limb, NOT fetus stem cells which has not been found to my knowledge to do anything more then ADULT stem cells.

    • 12 months ago
  • gargoylex
  • cheche_201
    • 0
      cheche_201  
    • Again, Youtube. If he cuts off his arm on Youtube, then sprinkle some of the miracle dust on it and let us watch his arm grow back then I would believe him.

      You heard me

    • 3 years ago
  • abbo
    • 0
      abbo  
    • But the Bible specifically states that thou cannot use stem cell/pig bladder powder to regrow lost body parts-eth.

      out-law it pronto.

    • 3 years ago
  • thedismembermentplan
  • malathion
    • 0
      malathion  
    • i was so disappointed as a kid when the sea monkey kit i bought out of the back of a comic turned out to be nothing but krill shrimp - i thought i'd have a few life sized sea monkeys to hang out with - i'm very excited about this story because i'm hoping to buy some of this powder and grow some new friends piece by piece - the only problem i see is the boring " assembly required" thing - i don't know , maybe i can be happy with having just a "hand" - like in the adams family - that would be pretty cool.

    • 3 years ago
  • kaseymarie2
  • jawnybnsc
    • 0
      jawnybnsc  
    • I also find the response of progressives to this issue to be interesting. Imagine that some pharmaceutical company developed a new drug, but did so almost entirely through government funded research. Let's then also imagine that said pharmaceutical company went out and made boat loads of money off of this new drug, not having spent a dime on R & D. I'm assuming that you'd all be OK with that? You wouldn't be calling for drug companies to fund their own research? So . . . if this issue resolves in your favor and some company patents a therapy derived from ES Cells and makes tons of money . . . it's all good right? No caterwauling about corporations making a buck off of government funded research?

    • 3 years ago
  • jawnybnsc
    • 0
      jawnybnsc  
    • Quote:

      I know we shouldn't rely completely on the government for funding, but I don't think any other source could provide the same large amount of money over a long period of time. If the government did provide the needed funding, this research could have been much farther a long then it is now.

      Response:

      Is this your opinion, or do you have some evidence that supports this claim? And by source, I mean a scientist who is working in this field who says that with government funding they could have done x, y . . . z. I'm not interested at all in some politician's or pundit's views on this.

      And by the way, you should also note that several recent advances, particularly the work of Dr. Lanza, Professor Yamanaka, James Thompson and Rudolf Jaenisch, seem destined to make the whole political issue of federal funding of ESCR moot. Of course it is your choice to let politicians continue to use this issue as a wedge, but I'd rather focus on what actually is being accomplished with or without the help of the government.

    • 3 years ago
  • lwhi
  • Greg_Bunker
    • 0
      Greg_Bunker  
    • I find this interesting but I think that more experiments with different variables that will better prove that it was the stem cells that caused this reaction.

    • 3 years ago
  • lwhi
  • Neghie
  • CarCrashHeart
  • philhind
  • hack26
    • 0
      hack26  
    • Is this going to make my new finger smell like bacon? Because if it is, I might try to eat it... and then grow another one...

    • 3 years ago
  • jubal
  • Future_America
    • 0
      Future_America  
    • jawnybnsc,

      It doesn't matter what type of stem cells they are, adult or embryonic, just as long as it works and it's safe.
      The issue is not that it's illegal to use embryonic stem cells, it's that the government won't provide the much needed funding that is needed.
      I know we shouldn't rely completely on the government for funding, but I don't think any other source could provide the same large amount of money over a long period of time. If the government did provide the needed funding, this research could have been much farther a long then it is now.

    • 3 years ago
  • jawnybnsc
    • 0
      jawnybnsc  
    • Ummm . . . I know it's fashionable and fun to bash Bush, but did any of you actually READ the article? This research was done using ADULT stem cells and was done at the University of Pittsburgh. If you didn't know . . . that's here . . . in the United States. By the way, if the University of Pittsburgh needed to use embryonic stem cells for this research they could have. There is absolutely nothing in law to stop them.

    • 3 years ago
  • Da_Cod
  • Adumbration
    • 0
      Adumbration  
    • Dude, why does our government reject this kind of thing? To the counter-argument that it kills fetuses, let me say this: If the world is a giant hospital, which choice would you make, let in new patients and work the doctors harder or treat those already admitted with the best possible care? I choose the latter. It is the most moral, in my opinion.

    • 3 years ago
  • Future_America
  • NaCl
  • Thargor19
  • BigME413
    • 0
      BigME413  
    • While this is an impressive story, I find it suspicious that there is only one "patient" here who actually grew something back- and an end of a finger at that. Have they not given the magical powder to anyone else? Also, there's plenty of speculation here, but not much evidence to back it up. I kind of expected better reporting. Still, the possibilities are amazing.

    • 3 years ago
  • ipodrulz
    • 0
      ipodrulz  
    • This will soon lead to many great uses, but at the same time many improper uses. Such as re-growing parts to sell in the black market. Or awesome youtube videos of kids re-growing toes.

    • 3 years ago
  • ILiveonaClock
    • 0
      ILiveonaClock  
    • No joke, my dad grew back his top knuckle and bone and nail and all after cutting it off. it's a little crooked, but it grew all by itself. The doctors called him lizard man.

    • 3 years ago
  • malathion
    • 0
      malathion  
    • pfff the chinese have had a tonic for ages which can make you live a thousand years - the only problem is that the sources for the 2 main ingredients ( tiger balls and penis , and black rhino horn ) are hard to come by these days - but this is a minor issue , because chinese folk remedy specialists have devised a way to derive a similar potion from the extracted anus's of tibetans .

    • 3 years ago
  • ace_ofgabriel
    • 0
      ace_ofgabriel  
    • Reptiles can regenerate limbs becuause they do not have a immune system and DJsound, Stem cells are the future of sciences but living animal stem cell in a POWER. Get serious that is some hoax created in order to gain attention to the issue.

    • 3 years ago
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • I wonder if this technique could produce new teeth where teeth have been lost or pulled out. Its application in dentistry and stomatology could get extraordinary results if it works.

    • 3 years ago
  • VoyagerFilms
  • tatuaje
    • 0
      tatuaje  
    • They almost make it sound so easy....just take whatever pig bladders you have laying around, pulverize 'em, and sprinkle on yo boo-boo....whoa....i'm gonna get me a pig...

    • 3 years ago
  • jhydo
    • 0
      jhydo  
    • We've being told that we share genes with Reptiles that have the ability to regenerate limbs. So it's just a matter of time before someone bridges the gap.

    • 3 years ago
  • Vierotchka
  • DJSoundBored
  • onechance
    • 0
      onechance  
    • Oh I meant so that he HAS a brain. Right now I think it's empty, except for a mini computer component that's run via remote control. Dick Cheney runs the controls.

    • 3 years ago
  • ace_ofgabriel
  • Vierotchka
  • wacness
  • onechance
  • onechance
  • jh64487
  • DBCOOPER
    • 0
      DBCOOPER  
    • It has been known since the early 70's that children up to age 11 can completely regenerate up to the first knuckle. So predictable that some surgeons finish amputating a badly damaged fingertip, as a lost one will regenerate new, instead of healing disfigured permanently. The interesting part of this story is that its a very watered down version of what has been done 30 years ago with tablescrap funding, not millions of dollars. For examples of this see The Body Electric by Robert O. Becker M.D.

      Stem cells are Beer and Circus to keep our wallets open.

    • 3 years ago
  • CarolynGillis
  • slamber
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