'Pixie Dust' May Regrow Troop's Finger

'Pixie Dust' May Regrow Troop's Finger
May 28, 2008
United Press International

SAN ANTONIO - 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.


Article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/pixie-dust-may-regrow-troops-finger.html

Would it just keep growing one long finger?.. Would the top have jto be re-amputated and formed into a fingertip?

Inquiring minds want to know. . .