Pixie Dust...What can it do for us?

There is a article at CNN.com about some stuff coined "Pixie Dust" which is being experimented with on soldiers who have a amputated body part like fingers, arms, legs or toes but not heads. This is being trialed at Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) in San Antonio Texas where I took my Respiratory Training.

You can read the article here: Pixie Dust

This pixie dust is supposed to give the body a salamander effect and trick the body into regenerating the missing body part. The powder forms a microscopic "scaffold" that attracts stem cells and convinces them to grow into the tissue that used to be there.

"If it is next to the skin, it will start making skin. If it's next to a tendon, it will start making a tendon, and so that's the hope, at least in this particular project, that we can grow a finger," Wolf said.

This is pretty interesting, how could this help our profession? Could this "pixie dust" help regenerate lungs destroyed by smoking, improving quality of life for COPD patients? Could it help people exposed to substances cause them to get fibrosis?

Interesting to say the least and I will keep a look out in for how it turns our for humans and for the soldier in the article. Hope it works.