Defense Tech: 'Pixie Dust' May Regrow Fingers


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Edited by Christian Lowe \| Contact

'Pixie Dust' May Regrow Fingers

tinker bell.bmp

Interesting medical item running over at Military.com:

(UPI) Doctors at Brook Army Medical Center are testing a regeneration powder that could help injured soldiers regrow fingers and other body parts lost in battle.

The powder, nicknamed 'Pixie Dust' after the fairy dust that enabled children to fly in Disney's Peter Pan, is made from tissue extracted from pigs. It attracts stem cells and convinces them to grow into the tissue that used to be there, CNN reported May 27. Doctors at BAMC used the powder last week on a wounded Soldier to encourage the regeneration of a finger in lost in Iraq.

"If it is next to the skin, it will start making skin. If it's next to a tendon, it will start making a tendon, and so that's the hope, at least in this particular project, that we can grow a finger," Dr. Steven Wolf told CNN.

Doctors said they are watching patients for unexpected side effects, such as cancer.

(Tinker Bell image courtesy of the Walt Disney Company.)

-- Ward

Comments

But finger tips already have the ability to regenerate. This powder is just promoting that ability further. To my knowledge though, ONLY the finger tips have this ability, which is why they have not been able to use it to make limbs regrow.

Posted by: CHris at April 25, 2009 12:50 AM

This appeared on oprah recently my grandmother told me about it, it is true, a man that was missing one of his fingers up to the nuckle used this powder to regrow it. they can no also take animal organs, suck the dna out of them and spay them with a mixutre of your dna, place them in a incubator and then transplant them to the patient without rejection meds.

Posted by: dj at March 28, 2009 11:32 AM

Maybe the World would finally like to know the company that makes the "pixie dust" that everyone has been talking about. The company is ACell Inc. and the "Pixie Dust Powder" (UBM) is called Matristem Powder, a naturally occurring Extracellular Matrix that is now being made available to Medical doctors for repair of wounds such as finger amputations. The first patient, Lee Spievack has been on CNN and Fox News several times and will be appearing on Oprah March 24th with Dr OZ. ACell has completed many additional finger injury cases like Lee Spievack's with similar results. Product and ordering information will be available on ACell's Website beginning on March 24th.

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Posted by: replicashoes at October 23, 2008 10:12 PM

Pixie dust is not a myth - stop the illegal farming of these creatures before it's too late!

Posted by: M. Herring at May 31, 2008 08:16 PM

The Military is interested so it's not a hoax. It appears you can buy the powder from ACell (for veternary use only). Cut something up and try it out yourself!
http://www.acell.com/vet.php
Check out the animal case studies.

Posted by: Larry Ortel at May 31, 2008 12:44 AM

David Hambling,

You said, "The 'regrown finger' story has been disproven - see link to Ben Goldacre's story below."

Ben Goldacre's story doesn't disprove anything... He offers his opinion, conjecture, & personal observation. No where does he provide any empirical data, nor show use of the scientific method & gathering of qualitative evidence. Not to mention, Goldacre's criticism has more to do with the incompetence of news reports.

While to the contrary Medical Doctors at Brook Army Medical Center are "evaluating" an item with a plausible scientific theory behind it:

"The powder forms a microscopic "scaffold" that attracts stem cells and convinces them to grow into the tissue that used to be there."

"Salamander-inspired therapy may aid injured vets"
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/05/26/regrowing.body.parts/index.html

"In the 7th rib space, there was evidence of bone formation between the interpositional graft and the existing bone, as well as de novo formation of organized bone in the shape of the missing rib segment parallel to the interpositional graft. This study shows that a naturally occurring ECM scaffold promotes site-specific constructive remodeling in a large thoracic wall defect."

"Repair of the thoracic wall with an extracellular matrix scaffold in a canine model."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17950323

"Wouldn't you rather they tried something with some evidence behind it?"

How exactly does one gain evidence, pro or con, without an evaluation? If you have a study to cite disproving this technique, then by all means please post it... I'd like to read it. Personally, I hope doctors & scientists exhaust all possible avenues in order to help Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines recover from the scars of war. Maybe it'll work... maybe it won't.

Posted by: Camp at May 30, 2008 12:09 PM

Pittsburgher - "Pixie Dust is real"

Care to point us to some evidence? The 'regrown finger' story has been disproven - see link to Ben Goldacre's story below.

Posted by: David Hambling at May 30, 2008 05:49 AM

WHO SAID THERE IS NO MAGICK. IT IS ABOUT TIME MANKIND STARTED RELEARNING THE ANCIENT ARTS.
NOW IF IT WOULD WORK LIKE VIAGRA WITH THE ADDED "SIDE EFFECT", I'D BUY IT.
SEMPER FI

Posted by: DONALD HEINKE, Sr. at May 29, 2008 06:59 PM

Pixie Dust is real, guys! Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine are truly teaming with the military to do research into regrowing limbs. (The powder has literally regrown an amputated finger in four weeks.) A clinical trial will be opening sometime this year in South America to regrow the esophagus in patients who have theirs surgically removed due to cancer. For once this is something that sounds like science fiction but is really the health care of the future.

Posted by: Pittsburgher at May 29, 2008 02:12 PM

Hair, what about hair? Let me try that out.

Posted by: Jayson Cummins at May 29, 2008 01:40 PM

There's no evidence it works - will be interesting to see if the military really are testing it, but somehow I doubt it.

"Whether it works or not, I'm glad to see Doctors are at least evaluating it. "

Wouldn't you rather they tried something with some evidence behind it?

Posted by: David Hambling at May 29, 2008 11:12 AM

I hope it does work, it sounds far fetched but I am hopeful. I need some on my right middle finger. I want it to grow back. Will someone send me some? :)

Posted by: navyem at May 29, 2008 07:23 AM

Radical use anyplace: workplace, police, fire dept etc.
Im impressed, now to invest.
Toss powder over wound it Heals.
Unique.
Must expand on this.

Posted by: stephen russell at May 28, 2008 10:00 PM

...if it can be made from pigs then it should be able to be made from human tissue...

Posted by: whtetiger at May 28, 2008 08:14 PM

Whether it works or not, I'm glad to see Doctors are at least evaluating it. Not to mention, sometimes a little bit of hope can go a long way. Heck, parents are saving Cord Blood for their children, because it contains stem cells genetically unique to the child which can be used to treat diseases.

"Times Online: Experts discredit regenerative 'pixie dust'"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3866743.ece

"Extracellular matrix"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracellular_matrix

"Cord Blood Guide"
http://parentsguidecordblood.org/
http://parentsguidecordblood.org/content/usa/medical/diseases.shtml

Posted by: Camp at May 28, 2008 09:20 AM

Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column debunked this one a few weeks back:

http://www.badscience.net/?p=664

"Allow me to explain why I have good grounds to believe that this is nonsense, and that the journalists concerned have failed in the most basic regard...."

Posted by: David Hambling at May 28, 2008 08:30 AM

'Pixie Dust' May Regrow Fingers

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