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Soldier Re-Grows Leg Muscle After Experimental Procedure
Marine Isaias Hernandez has been able to grow back most of the missing muscle from his leg, including skeletal muscle, thanks to an experimental treatment involving an injection of a a growth promoting substance extracted from pig bladders. Hernandez lost 70% of his right thigh muscles from a mortar exploded attack in Afghanistan. Normally this type of injury would lead to an amputation. From the article: "In preparation for the operation, corporal Hernandez was made to build up the remaining 30 per cent of muscle left on the damaged thigh. Surgeons then sliced into the thigh, placing a thin slice of a substance called extracellular matrix. The surgery is the result of a $70 million investment by the US military into regenerative medicine research."
Great, so the crap that should be in Idle makes it to one of the main sections, and this important story ends up in Idle. Great work guys, great work.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Somebody tell House!
... we can rebuild him? We do have the technology?
s/[stupid comments]/[intelligent discourse]/gi
A corporation could have done it for $7 million of course they never would have because there is no money in it.
This procedure was medical research not regular medical care. $7 million is nothing for corporate medical research, a billion or more is spent researching a drug. Hundreds of millions are spent developing devices. Also once such a treatment becomes regular care it will probably be far less costly. I am not saying it may be easy to get, initially at least - in a century who knows, but I think you are not accurately representing the situation.
Something here doesn't sound kosher to me...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I agree. $7 Million is small compared to most major drug research. The cost here was the research the matrix itself is cheap by comparison. I believe there is money to be made in this field. The ability to regrow damaged organs in particular muscle mass is vital to rehabilitation of most patients. This could cut out a lot of money spent in rehab. That's not to say rehab will be rendered unnecessary, but a large portion of time spent in rehab on rebuilding the initial muscle mass can be channeled towards increasing flexibility and endurance. In my opinion those are their largest losses in movement.
You are making a semantic argument that only makes sense to someone in the marines.
Soldier is a generic term that refers to someone in an army (army here is in the general meaning and not the US Army branch of the military). Marine would be a subset of that. Someone in the marines could be very accurately called a soldier. The only reason someone would object to conflating the terms would be if they were in the US marines and were overly sensitive to the rivalry with the US army.
To use your analogy it's more like a programmer getting offended at being called an IT worker because he is NOT JUST A DBA!
I suppose you could make an argument that since the marines are simply a branch of the navy he should have been called a sailor but that is a bit of a stretch.
...interested in finding a cure for attention deficit disorder.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I think the researchers and surgeons DID repair his leg for less than $7 million. "The surgery is the result of a $70 million investment by the US military into regenerative medicine research," sounds to me not like the army spent $70 million on his leg, it sounds like that was the price tag of the whole study.
Kind of like how companies spend millions developing a new drugs: they're spending the money to learn how to make it. The actual finished product has to cost far, far less in order for anyone to buy it.
I'm guessing the actual costs of repairing his leg were in the thousands of dollars range, not 70 million.
You are right though that a private company would be unlikely to invest in this type of research, at least without significant grant money from taxpayers, precisely because there is no product to sell at the end.
In the 1970s they could have done it for $6 million, and gotten another leg, an arm, and an eye in the bargain. And they wouldn't have to sit around waiting for muscles to grow. It was on TV and everything.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Yes unfortunately that's par for the course with the Daily Mail, the UK's answer to Fox News.
If you search around their website in amongst the horseshit about celebrities and completely made-up articles about crazy new EU 'laws' you'd also find their ongoing effort to divide all inanimate objects in the world (especially foods) into those that either cause cancer or cure it.
I'll believe in miracle new treatments when there's a more credible source article.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
I am not well versed in regenerative biology, but my girlfriend happens to be getting her PhD in that field. I sent her this link for comment and here's what she said:
From article: "The wounded Marine's recovery is particularly exciting for scientists as it involves the regeneration of skeletal muscle which ordinarily does not grow back"
From any book in any regenerative scientist's library: "It has been known for more than a century that skeletal muscle, the most abundant tissue of the body, has the ability to regenerate new muscle fibers after it has been damaged by injury or as a consequence of diseases such as muscular dystrophy (1)"
(in this case the reference = Carlson BM. The regeneration of skeletal muscle. A review. Am J Anat. 1973;137(2):119–149. View this article via: PubMed CrossRef)
Annoying! Maybe he is on to something that really does help quicken the natural regeneration response or promotes better healing or something, but no one will ever know because there are no controls. He has no mouse controls... he obviously can't do human controls and people are just slapping this stuff on there because... "at least it doesn't hinder the response". (but he could be charging billions for a placebo!)
Oh well. Science is stupid. The media is even dumber.
In other words: Slashdot, please stop posting articles from the Daily Mail. Also, on background, I know the doctor mentioned in the article, Badylak, was kicked out of his group for poor research practices that included trial by media instead of peer review. This sort of publicity piece is his MO.
All stated opinions are subject to further review
I see your point and agree that either way it would have been more accurate.
It is possible that I may have been reacting to a perceived elitist attitude that it is obvious you don't have. I apologize.
there was a huge problem wit the technology, every time you started running it looked like goddam 70s slow motion.
Also the noise was awful, sounded like an horrible little crescendo tune in a loop.
Too many defaults for the cost, we had to bin it 8p
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Just because you don't like it and use it as a way to disrespect your fellow servicemen doesn't mean we all have to follow your lead.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Not sure if your whole post was snark or not, but I don't see why insurance companies wouldn't fund it. It is probably significantly cheaper than prosthetics, and the associated medical costs that come from loss of limb.