This first came to my attention last year from a BBC article (The man who grew back his finger tip). It seems that this has even caught the attention of Oprah:


Basically, Lee Spievack is accidentally sliced his fingertip off. Instead of having a skin-graft he called his brother, who just so happens to be a doctor who studies tissue regeneration. Long story short, by sprinkling the cells from a pig bladder an extracellular matrix was formed and his fingertip regrew.



Now, it must be added that Ben Goldacre who writes the Bad Science column of The Guardian and also Bad Science the book, says that this was no miracle, but was basically just the way the body normally heals itself. The full article is: The amazing disappearing reappearing finger.

I'm not a medical doctor, so I cannot offer an opinion. All I can say, really, is that it would be super-freaking-awesome if Mr. Goldacre was wrong.

Labels: biochem