Salamander-inspired therapy may aid injured vets (CNN) {regrow missing limbs?}

[eppur_se_muova]

By Larry Shaughnessy
CNN Pentagon Producer

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (CNN) -- Last week in an operating room in Texas, a wounded American soldier underwent a history-making procedure that could help him regrow the finger that was lost to a bomb attack in Baghdad last year.

Army Sgt. Shiloh Harris' doctors applied specially formulated powder to what's left of the finger in an effort to do for wounded soldiers what salamanders can do naturally: replace missing body parts.

If it sounds like science fiction, the lead surgeon agreed.

"It is. But science fiction eventually becomes true, doesn't it?" said Dr. Steven Wolf of Brooke Army Medical Center.

Harris' surgery is part of a major new medical study of "regenerative medicine" being pursued by the Pentagon and several of the nation's top medical facilities, including the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic. So far nearly $250 million has been dedicated to the research.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/05/26/regrowing.body.parts/index.html