“Pixie Dust” Regrows Finger
posted by ModeratorFiled under: Fact or Fiction?, You Decide
From Sarah:
Horse Jockey, Paul Halpern, Regrows Bitten-Off Finger With Help Of Powder Made From Pig Bladders by Anthony Rivas
MedicalDaily.com
September 17, 2013
Besides the initial pain, losing a finger may soon be a lot less distressing and debilitating, if one South Florida doctor has his way. That”™s because he used a powder, known in the media as Magic Pixie Dust, to regrow one horse jockey”™s digit “” both tissue and bone “” after it was bitten off by his horse while feeding.
“It”™s a certain powder, a dust that you sprinkle on your finger every other day, you wrap it up, and long story short, it grew back “” the majority of it,” Paul Halpern, the New Jersey-based horse jockey, who spends some of his time in Florida, told NBC6. “I”™m quite happy.”
The procedure is a form of xenotransplantation, more commonly known as cross-species transplantation, during which animal organs or tissue are transplanted into humans, and it’s non-surgical and painless. ACell, a producer of the MatriStem powder, says that it is made from tissue of pig bladders because the “protein scaffold” is “nearly identical to that of human tissue.” (more…)
