![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lifeislikesciencefiction.com\/lifeislikescifi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/new-finger-404_666737e1.jpg\" "\\"new-finger-404_666737e1\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nLee Spievak, 69, severed half an inch from his fingertip after getting it caught in the propellor of a model plane.<\/p>\n
But over four months he watched as a perfectly-formed replacement grew from his stump, complete with tissue, nerves, nail, skin, and fingerprint.<\/p>\n
Doctors now hope that the treatment – using a powder called extra cellular matrix – could be used to repair severely burnt skin, or even damaged organs.<\/p>\n
Mr Spievak, who works in a hobby shop in Ohio, was unable to find his severed fingertip and doctors told him he had lost it for good.<\/p>\n
His brother Alan, who works in the field of regenerative medicine, sent him the powder, which Mr Spievak calls ‘pixie dust\u2019.<\/p>\n
For ten days he put a little on the end of his finger, and says after just two applications the re-growth was already visible.<\/p>\n
He told BBC News: \u201cEach day it was up further. Finally it closed up and was a finger. It took about four weeks before it was sealed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now he says he has \u201ccomplete feeling, complete movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The inventor of the powder, Dr Stephen Badylak from the University of Pittsburgh, has pioneered a process which involves scraping cells from the lining of a pig\u2019s bladder.<\/p>\n
The tissue is then \u201ccleaned\u201d of all cells in acid and dried out before being turned into sheets, or a powder.<\/p>\n
Scientists believe that when the extra cellular matrix is put on a wound, it stimulates cells in the tissue to grow rather than a scar.<\/p>\n
Dr Badylak said: \u201cI think that within ten years that we will have strategies that will re-grow the bones, and promote the growth of functional tissue around those bones. And that is a major step towards eventually doing the entire limb.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US military is poised to start trials of the powder to regrow parts of the fingers of injured soldiers.<\/p>\n
Another trial in Buenos Aires will involve a woman who has cancer of the esophagus.<\/p>\n
Credit: The Daily Telegraph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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