April 29, 2008 -- A new five-year, $250 million Defense Department initiative aims to heal soldiers and civilians by using a patient's own cells to regenerate lost body parts, starting with skin and ending with entire limbs.
"Humans can regenerate ourselves, but only up to a certain point," said Anthony Atala, a doctor at Wake Forest University who is involved in the new Army initiative, called the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (more happily known as AFIRM).
"The concept here is using not just the cells you have under normal conditions, but also using outside techniques to help speed up the natural regeneration process," said Atala.
Roadside bombs and suicide bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to a big increase in blast trauma among U.S. troops. Army doctors already make use of existing regenerative medicine to help heal soldiers wounded in battle.
Using a human patient's own cells, scientists can regenerate simple tissues like skin, cartilage, bladders, ears, noses, blood vessels and other body parts.
Regenerating the heart, lungs and entire limbs, however, becomes more complex, although promising studies have already been done, including creating a beating rat heart in a petri dish. The ultimate goal -- a new arm or leg -- is still many years away, according to scientists, but eventually even these parts will be regenerated.
"If a salamander can [regenerate a lost limb], why can't a human?" said Atala.
Atala points out that all parts of the body have reserves of cells that can regenerate when injury occurs. The idea is to take these cells and trigger them to regenerate outside the body. The newly grown living cells can then be placed over biodegradable material and shaped in the form of the missing body part, such as a limb.
As the cells grow, the material is absorbed by the body, and the new limb is formed.
One reason scientists are pushing so hard for regeneration technology is that since the replacement tissue or organs are made from a patient's own cells, the risk of rejection is virtually nonexistent.
It takes six to eight weeks to regenerate the lost tissue, said Atala. Speeding up that process is another goal of AFIRM.
While the research is Army-funded, civilians will also benefit from AFIRM.
"Everything we are doing is for civilians as well as soldiers," said Atala. "Civilians have all kinds of regular traumas like car accidents, and so would also benefit from these technologies."
Other scientists view the AFIRM project as a way to accelerate scientific results into patient therapies.
"Any initiative that gets scientists working with clinicians really speeds the transition from discovery into therapies for people," said Amy Wagers, a regeneration researcher at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston not involved with AFIRM. "AFIRM is an investment in that is definitely appropriate and very worthwhile."
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