The Real Bionic Woman: Regrowing Body Parts…Who Needs Cyborgs?

Last year, the Bionic Woman aired to an audience eager for a sympathetic female super-hero in a high-tech world where medical advancements came from science fiction.

Nearly killed in a car accident, Jaime Sommers is saved by a cutting-edge operation that leaves her with advanced bionic prosthetics and implants that give her extraordinary new strength, speed and other artificially enhanced abilities. Sommers possessed nanomachines called anthrocytes which were capable of healing her body at a highly accelerated rate. It was a cool premise…

Reality has just collided with science fiction...again:

The ability to re-grow limbs and recreate organs in humans was demonstrated last week, as the U.S. Army disclosed details to a select group of bloggers and military observers about the technology for human cell rebuilding. Researchers re-grew a man’s fingertip and the internal organs of several test subjects using a technique called “nano-scaffolding”.

A very fine apparatus, a scaffold, made of polymer fibers hundreds of times finer than a human hair, are put in place of a missing limb or damaged organ. Much like a real scaffold, the nano-scaffold guides cells to grab onto it so they can begin to rebuild missing bones and tissue. “The tissue grows through tiny holes in the nano-scaffold, in the same way a vine snakes its way up a trellis,” writes Vito Pilieci of the Vancouver Sun. “after the body part has regenerated, the nano-scaffold breaks down, is absorbed into the person’s body and disappears entirely.” The nail, bone and tissue re-grew completely.

The military had re-grown whole bladders in people with bladder damage and were able to repair the wall of a woman’s uterus, reports Pilieci.

Back in June 2006, researchers from the University of Sheffield in England had used nano-scaffolding to repair skin damage in people with third-degree burns. In February of this year, a PhD student from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, reported research that showed how nano-scaffolding could be used to repair nerve damage. And just a few weeks ago, researchers at the City University of Hong Kong, reported claims that nano-scaffolding would soon revolutionize bone grafts and implants.

What’s next? Jean-Luc Locutus?

Reference:

Pilieci, Vito. 2008. "Military learning to gro body parts." In: The Vancouver Sun, November 8, 2008.

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.