Lost or Planning On Losing a Finger? No Worries!

If you've lost part of your finger in an accident recently, you might have a good shot at growing it back! All you need is a freshly cut finger and a pig's bladder. Once you have the bladder, you can extract (in powdered form) a substance called an Extracellular Matrix, which when applied to a raw severed part of your body, acts as a regeneration stimulant. Normally when you cut yourself (or lose a limb) your body naturally scars the area, which prevents it from growing anything back. When Extracellular Matrix is applied, however, "it begins to break down into surrounding tissue, [and] causes the cells in that tissue to start repairing the damage the way they would in a developing fetus (or a salamander that loses a limb) -- they divide and rebuild, creating new, normal tissue, not scar tissue." Using this method of regeneration, people have completely regrown sizable lengths of their fingers, fully functional and fully wired with all nerve cells.


On a deeper note, scientists have found it interesting that human fetuses can fully repair physical damage done in the womb, but lose this ability upon birth. Since fetuses achieve this through a combination of Stem Cells and Extracellular Matrix (Matrices?), it might be possible that the substance's application to raw body tissue puts cells in that region in a Stem Cell state, where they can repair and regenerate lost tissue.


At the moment, scientists are working on finding ways to fully regenerate lost limbs, and Extracellular 
Matrix might turn out to be the solution.


Source: http://tinyurl.com/4jpqfcn