Thousands of wounded soldiers could benefit from clinical trials that will study the possibility of growing back severed limbs and other body parts, officials at the University of Pittsburgh said Friday.
Five trials focusing on regenerative medicine could start within the next year using a $1 million grant announced yesterday by U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn Hills.
Santorum made the announcement at Pitt’s McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, where scientists have been working on cell-based methods to regrow damaged or destroyed muscle, bone and tissue.
"We’re seeing lots of limbs being lost, lots of burns," Santorum said after touring the McGowan laboratories in Hazelwood. "We’re talking to a lot of soldiers who want to go on with their lives, but they are impaired."
About 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq – more than 16,000 soldiers – have required single or multiple amputations, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
The grant also will support the creation of the new Soldier Treatment and Regeneration Consortium, a national partnership of military and academic research centers and industry.
Among the consortium’s partners are the McGowan Institute, the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Regenerative Medicine Foundation.
The consortium’s five-year goal is the creation of a fully functional finger.
One of the first trials likely will involve regenerating a soldier’s ear lost to a roadside bomb in Iraq, said Alan J. Russell, director of the McGowan Institute and executive director of the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative.
Other trials will involve growing new tissue for burn patients and soldiers who suffer massive trauma.
"These are clinical trials, not clinical realities," Russell said. "We don’t know how many of these will work."
