Biomagic “pixie dust” regrows man’s lopped-off finger

Engadget:

“It’s the stuff of sci-fi and really crappy
awesome horror films, but now it looks like regrowing damaged skin and
limbs isn’t so far-fetched — in fact, it’s already happening. A
certain 69 year old Lee Spievak lost half an inch of finger to an
agressive model plane blade, and doctors had little hope for the
appendage. Lucky for Lee, his brother Alan works in the field of
regenerative medicine, and sent him some powder (which lee calls “pixie
dust”) to apply to the finger. Four weeks later Lee had grown back the
entire finger, as good as new. The pixie dust is actually modified
cells scraped from the lining of a pig’s bladder cleaned into a
general-purpose tissue generator — the cells basically tell the body
to grow instead of scar. Doctors have high hopes for the cells, for
everything from amputees to burn victims to cancer patients. We’re just
waiting until they can program these cells to grow that third arm we
always wanted.”