Lee Spievak, while fiddling with his model airplane two years ago, accidentally sliced half inch off of the middle finger on his right hand including his nail in the propeller. Examining the fingers, doctors told him he’d never get it back, but his brother Alan didn’t lose hope and sent him some powder derived from a pig bladder. Spievak rubbed the powder regularly, everyday for a month on his finger, and surprisingly in four months time, the finger was back, fully formed with the nail as well. Alan Spievak who worked in regenerative medicine was familiar with Stephen Badylak’s work at the University of Pittsburgh. Slogging in the lab enlightened Badylak about the fact that extra-cellular matrix from a pig bladder is a chock full of biochemical signals that prevent scarring from stunted cells’. Yet, he never tried it on humans, but took a chance on his fingers and it worked. An article on BBC has a video to prove this occurrence.

The story says if this technique is perfected, it could repair not just a finger, but severely burnt skin or organs. This technique will be embraced in order to cure a woman affected by cancer of oesophagus. In response to the question, “Could the limbs be re-grown?” Dr Badylak is cautious but believes the technology is potentially revolutionary.

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