Imagine a day when medical treatment will allow a human being to grow a new leg or arm where one has been amputated.
Consider the possibilities of regenerating other body tissue lost or damaged from injury or disease.
Can scientists learn how some animals like salamanders and newts re-grow limbs and use this knowledge to help humans grow new legs, arms and other body tissue?
That is what several groups of researchers plan to find out using multimillion dollar grants from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The research involved in these DARPA-sponsored efforts has been called “mind-blowing.”
Researchers from many prestigious institutions are part of the effort to understand how genetics and other factors affect the ability of many of Earth’s creatures to regenerate tissue, limbs and even spinal cords.
HELPING INJURED TROOOPS
The DARPA funding is in response to the large numbers of U.S. military personnel who have become amputees as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More than 400 troops have lost limbs from violence in Iraq and nearly 40 from fighting in Afghanistan.
In addition, many military personnel have sustained other serious injuries, including burns, severe head and face trauma and other significant damage to body tissues.
Improved body armor, though late in coming for many troops in Iraq, has proven valuable in protecting troops’ torso from bullets and when improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have been detonated along Iraq’s roads.
However, troops’ arms and legs as well as the neck, face and head have been tragically vulnerable to IEDs.
In addition to traumatic amputation, when a limb is completely blown off and severed from the explosion, many troops have required surgical amputation due to the severity of the injuries.
And, of course, hundreds of deaths have resulted.
Because the IEDs are typically placed alongside roads, at or below ground level, the explosive blast typically sends shrapnel in an upward direction.
Though troops’ protective helmets are relatively effective for protection from projectiles coming from above or the side, these blasts coming from below have done severe damage that helmets were unable to defend against.
In many of these head injuries, brain damage and trauma has been a serious problem for troops. Shrapnel penetrating the brain in many cases has resulted in devastating injuries.
In addition, the concussion effects of these powerful explosive blasts has caused less visible injury in many military personnel when their brain is slammed against the inside of the skull. Though many of these troops may appear to be in good shape after an IED blast, certain neurological and psychological deficits may emerge in some cases.
Taken together, the wide array of severe injuries to troops in the Iraq War, and to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan, has resulted in tremendous difficulty for these personnel, their families and loved ones, and for the medical personnel taking care of these seriously wounded troops.
TISSUE REGENERATION AND HEALING
The DARPA-sponsored research, if it bears fruit, may hold the key to help heal many of these seriously and severely injured personnel.
Scientists understand much of the biology of how certain creatures regenerate limbs and other tissue.
For example, when salamanders and newts lose a limb, they can create new “progenitor cells,” also called “precursor cells.” These cells gather at the site of the injury, forming a “blastema.”
The blastema continues to grow and specialize into cells that form the nerves, bones, cartilage, muscles and skin to create a new limb.
Mammals typically are only able to do this only in the fetal stage. However, a genetically-engineered type of mouse has been found to possess the ability to regenerate some tissue. This mouse is the subject of some of the new DARPA-funded efforts.
As to when research on humans might begin, the researchers say they don’t know. Depending on the progress they make studying the genetic, cellular, chemical and other factors involved, human research could begin relatively soon, or further down the road in coming years.
However, as these researchers explore the possibilities and try to understand more about how tissue and limbs can regenerate, new discoveries undoubtedly will be made and significant insights will be revealed.
This DARPA-sponsored research may help lead the way to new developments that benefit our injured troops and veterans and their families, as well as other people with these kinds of injuries.
If this research pans out, millions of people and children around the world might also be helped from future quantum leaps in our medical and scientific knowledge.
DARPA may prove to be more than a funding source for state-of-the-art research and development.
The research agency may surface as a significant force that enhances our ability to heal the wounds of our fellow human beings and our children.
