Scientists at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute have regrown amputated limbs. In a study published in Science Advances, the researchers showed how they used a chemical cocktail to induce limb growth in frogs.
Currently, limb regrowth is limited to “salamanders and superheroes,” the team said in a press release. Like humans, whose bodies cover major injuries with scar tissue, adult frogs are unable to naturally regenerate limbs.
For the study, scientists began by applying a five-drug chemical cocktail infused in a silk protein gel to the African clawed frogs’ stump and covered it in a silicone dome, that they call a BioDome, to seal it. They removed the dome after 24 hours — and then waited 18 months for the limb to regrow.
David Kaplan, Stern Family Professor of Engineering at Tufts and co-author of the study, said that “using the BioDome cap in the first 24 hours helps mimic an amniotic-like environment which, along with the right drugs, allows the rebuilding process to proceed without the interference of scar tissue.”
