Several humans have grown their fingertips back with this technology which has been around for a few years:
http://www.guy-horse-bites-article-1.1458815 33-year-old jockey Paul Halpern's finger is on the mend after part of it was bitten off by a horse. Miami-area surgeon Dr. Eugenio Rodriguez was able to generate a new fingertip using a
technique involving pig bladder cells.
A doctor in Florida has grown back a patient's fingertip that the man lost to a horse bite.
Paul Halpern, a 33-year-old jockey, was feeding his horse when the animal got a little overzealous and chomped down on his index finger.
Halpern managed to save the severed digit and take it to the hospital, but doctors told him there was nothing they could do, CBS Miami reported. His insurance company reportedly recommended he have the remaining two-thirds of his finger amputated.
Halpern then went to see Dr. Eugenio Rodriguez, a Deerfield Beach general surgeon who used a procedure known as xenograft implantation to regenerate the finger. Xenograft refers to the transplantation of cells from one species to another.
Using tissue from the bladder of a pig, Rodriguez created a scaffold of Halpern's missing finger and attached it to the severed portion. The finger grew into the mold, generating new bone and soft tissue and a new fingernail.
Halpern had to apply pulverized pig bladder tissue to his wounded finger each day and cover it with a protective saline sheet.
The powder stimulates stem cells in the finger to regenerate, which causes the growth, Rodriguez said.
"I couldn't notice at the time [that it was growing], but once everything had healed and the fingernail grew back, which is quite miraculous, and the skin healed over, then you really notice,” Halpern told NBC Miami. "I consider myself very lucky."
enograft procedures are increasingly common in orthopaedic practice, but the risk of infection and cross-species disease transmission remain a concern, according to a June 2009 report published by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
Rodriguez said he expects 9 to 12 weeks for a "full recovery," but Halpern is already pleased with the results.
“I’m really grateful. I think it’s fantastic I think in the future there’s going to be other uses for it but it wasn’t a life threatening injury to me it was something that was an accident,” he told CBS Miami.
other articles:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1270990/Pixie-Dust-pig-bladders-regrows-limbs-wounded-soldiers.html http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jul-aug/13-how-pig-guts-became-hope-regenerating-human-limbs#.UkHvXRDYCSohttp://www.theverge.com/2012/9/17/3346238/extracellular-matrix-muscle-regeneration
