Limb Regeneration in Humans - Fingers is being proposed to be edited to bring the information up to date to the year 2011.
The following changes are proposed to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limb_regeneration
By 1974, Illingworth had documented several hundred similar cases of children under the age of 11 are able to regrow their fingertips providing that the finger is not be covered by a flap of skin.
Studies done by Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D., Orthopedic Surgeon and Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York, Syracuse, New York, between 1966 and 1980, showed that silver ions had the capability to dedifferentiate mature cells back to their embryonic state. He demonstrated the first artificial dedifferentiation in his laboratory as early as 1966. He used silver ions to regrow fingertips in children below the age of 11 years in a record period of only 90 days.
In August of 1995, Dr. Robert O. Becker demonstrated the first adult case of fingertip regeneration in a 21 year old male in a record period of 88 days. This is documented with progressive pictured taken between May 16, 1995 and August 11, 1995 in US Patent No. 5,814,094 issued on September 29, 1998. A normal finger takes about six months to grow the full length of a fingernail. His record period for adult fingertip regeneration in 88 days remained unchallenged for over one decade.
In August 2005, Lee Spievack, then in his early sixties, accidentally sliced off the tip of his right middle finger just above the first phalanx. His brother, Dr. Alan Spievack, was researching regeneration and provided him with powdered extracellular matrix, developed by Dr. Stephen Badylak of the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine. Mr. Spievack covered the wound with the powder, and the tip of his finger re-grew in four weeks. The news was released in 2007. Lee Spievack is another documented case of an adult human regenerating fingertips;<ref name=“weintraub” /> however, Ben Goldacre has described this as “the missing finger that never was”, claiming that fingertips regrow and quoted Simon Kay, professor of hand surgery at the University of Leeds, who from the picture provided by Goldacre described the case as seemingly “an ordinary fingertip injury with quite unremarkable healing”
In April 2010, Pramod Vora used silver nano particles to not only dedifferentiate mature cells back to their embryonic state, but also to activate stem cells to produce enhanced rate of progenitor cells for an accelerated regeneration of an amputated fingertip. This is documented with progressive pictures in the case of a 7 year old boy and shows complete regeneration of the fingertip with full fingernail and complete fingerprint in a record period of only 30 days.
In November 2010 and once again in April 2011, Pramod Vora showed the same accelerated regeneration in two different cases of adult fingertips in as little 21 days based on nano silver induced stem cell activation therapy.
References:
1. ^ Illingworth, Cynthia M. 1974. Trapped fingers and amputated fingertips in children. J. Ped. Surgery 9:853-858.
2. ^ Becker RO. The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life. New York, NY: William Morrow & Company; 1985.
3. ^ Becker RO, Flick AB, Becker AJ. Iontopheretic system for stimulation of tissue healing and regeneration. United States Patent 5814094. 1996, March 28.
4. ^ Babcock MJ. Methods for measuring fingernail growth rates in nutritional studies. J Nutr. 1955;55:323-336.
5. ^ “Regeneration recipe: Pinch of pig, cell of lizard”. Associated Press. MSNBC. February 19, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17171083/. Retrieved October 24, 2008.
6. ^ Goldacre, Ben (May 3, 2008). “The missing finger that never was”. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/03/medicalresearch.health.
7. ^ Vora, Pramod. Fingertip Regrowth, Anti-aging Medical Therapeutics, Volume 13, Spring 2010
8. ^ Vora, Pramod. Fingertip Regeneration, Anti-aging Medical Therapeutics, Volume 14, spring 2011.
9. ^ Tuch BE (2006). “Stem cells—a clinical update”. Australian Family Physician 35 (9): 719–21. PMID 16969445.
10. ^ Becker AJ, McCulloch EA, Till JE (1963). “Cytological demonstration of the clonal nature of spleen colonies derived from transplanted mouse marrow cells”. Nature 197 (4866): 452–4. doi:10.1038/197452a0. PMID 13970094.
11. ^ Siminovitch L, McCulloch EA, Till JE (1963). “The distribution of colony-forming cells among spleen colonies”. Journal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology 62 (3): 327–36. doi:10.1002/jcp.1030620313. PMID 14086156.
12. ^ Becker RO. The Body Electric: Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life. New York, NY: William Morrow & Company; 1985.
13. ^ Becker RO. Effects of electrically generated silver ions on human cells and wound healing. Electro and Magnetobiology. 2000;19:1-19.
14. ^ Becker RO. Induced dedifferentiation: a possible alternative to embryonic stem cell transplants. NeuroRehabilitation. 2002;17:23-31.
15. ^ Becker RO, Flick AB, Becker AJ. Iontopheretic system for stimulation of tissue healing and regeneration. United States Patent 5814094. 1996, March 28.
16. ^ Vora, Pramod. Nano Silver Induced Stem Cell Activation Therapy, Anti-aging Medical Therapeutics, Volume 13, spring 2010.
17. ^ Vora, Pramod. Fingertip Regeneration, Anti-aging Medical Therapeutics, Volume 14, spring 2011.
18. ^ Babcock MJ. Methods for measuring fingernail growth rates in nutritional studies. J Nutr. 1955;55:323-336.
The discussion so far:
Dear Editor,
There appears to be Conflict of Interest in the submissions that I made to edit the following pages. I am therefore happy to provide drafts of the changes proposed for an Editorial Review of the matter. It is unfortunate, that I also happen to be the person who has authored these research papers. But they have been peer reviewed and accepted by A4M the world's largest organization in Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, and published in their numerous volumes during the past few years. This should not make the information I am providing as “speculative” any more and anybody qualified in this subject who reads these papers should see merit in the work being done in this field. Attempt is being made to make this information public for the advancement of science and mankind. I have re-edited the information provided earlier to make it shorter and have removed any repetitions of information and kept it as neutral as I possibly could.
Further help is sought to make it meet Wikipedia's guidelines and expectations.
Thank you for your time, patience and assistance.
Your help in finalizing the edit for this page will be very highly appreciated.
Once again thanking you for your assistance.
Blessings, Pramod Vora Pramod Vora (talk) 23:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
A few comments:
1. I could find no indication that Anti-Aging Medical Therapeutics is peer-reviewed. It does not have an Eigenfactor ranking. It is unknown to PubMed. The Library of Congress has some issues (with vol. 8 the newest I could find), and the LoC does not classify it as a journal. It apparently does not even have a website. To be honest, I doubt it is a reliable source at all, and since it seems almost impossible to find a copy of the newer issues, it also seems to fail our policy on verifiability as well. If you really can speed up wound healing five-fold, I suggest publishing in the New England Journal of Medicine instead.
2. Your interpretation of Becker's results seems a lot more confident than Becker's own. I tried to look up his results on dedifferentiation, and the most I could find was this 2002 paper which says that observed effects were achieved “apparently by stimulating dedifferentiation of mature human cells.” That's very vague if Becker is supposed to have demonstrated the first artificial dedifferentiation in his laboratory as early as 1966. Almost fourty years later he's still at the “apparently” stage? I also failed to find any independent recognition of this effect that is supposed to be known for decades.
3. The Illingsworth paragraph you suggest for limb regeneration is redundant to the paragraph we already have.
In summary, your suggested edits seem to one-sidedly promote your own achievements despite a lack of supporting sources in the scientific literature. Becker is the best you have (and unfortunately I don't have access to Becker's book), but you stretch his results beyond recognition. Huon (talk) 01:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Dear Huon,
Anti-Aging Medical Therapeutics is not a journal but is released by A4M as a Medical Textbook Series. I said that my paper is peer reviewed by A4M. Wikipedia recognizes the existence of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Anti-Aging_Medicine) and has a whole page devoted to it. I am happy to note that the Library of Congress has volume 8 with it. It would be best to contact A4M at http://www.worldhealth.net to verify that it is a reliable source and to verify the existence of later volumes and that they have indeed peer reviewed and accepted my papers for publication in Volume 12, 13 and 14.
Here is a short note on the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine: “A4M is a non-for-profit medical society dedicated to the advancement of technology to detect, prevent, and treat aging related diseases and to promote research into methods to retard and optimize the human aging process and to prevent and treat aging related disorders. A4M is also dedicated to educating physicians, scientists and members of the public on issues of advanced preventive medicine and cutting edge biotechnologies.
A4M, is now over 24,000 members strong in 105 nations. A4M has trained over 100,000 physicians at International Scientific Conferences over the past 15 years.
A4M provides ongoing medical and scientific education and information services to over 500,000 healthcare professionals monthly via our on-line educational programs.”
I hope this information helps to establish the authenticity of The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and to peer review scientific papers.
I will write a separate e-mail to Dr. Ron Klatz, M.D., President, A4M to also contact you with other relevant information to help you establish the authenticity of A4M and the good work they are doing.
For more information on the late Dr. Robert O. Becker's research work please visit the following links to his published research papers and patent on my website: http://www.space-age.com/stemcell.html I will be happy to scan the relevant part of his book published in 1985 where he shows the first artificial dedifferentiation in summer of 1966 at the State University of New York, Syracuse, New York. Dedifferentiation is also talked about in his research papers whose references are already given by me. The pdf files of all these research papers and patents are available for download from my above mentioned webpage. The concept of our research work was created by Dr. Becker about 40 years back. We just carried it forward through the next 5 generations of development and put it to practical use in hospitals. The progressive photos taken are by Plastic Surgeons who are members of ISAPS and IAAPS. So the work is authenticated by other Doctors and Hospitals.
Dr. Becker filed a United States Patent showing regeneration of adult fingertip way back in 1995. This patent is on my website and you can see fingertip regeneration. Yet Wikipedia page writes that the first adult fingertip regeneration was done in August 2005.(August 2005, Lee Spievack). I have also tried to correct this. You can download this patent from my website given above for your study. We also have a exclusive page on children and adult Fingertip regeneration cases done during the last few years. You can see progressive pictures taken by other Doctors who are now implementing this technology in respectable hospitals. So you see it is not my work I am promoting. I am just collecting the information form other Doctors and propagating it. The names of these doctors are mentioned under each set of photographs.
Nor are we providing you stories from the media as are sometimes reported in Wikipedia. I do not understand how the media can be a source of information for an encyclopedia. Published research, duly peer reviewed, and read at scientific conferences, in my opinion, is any day a better source of information.
Please study the work of the late Dr, Robert Becker and please give him the credit he richly deserves.
Let me know if there is anything more I can do to help you decide if this knowledge should be made public for the benefit of mankind or should be lost into oblivion as has been the case with Dr. Rober O. Becker. Blessings, Pramod Vora Pramod Vora (talk) 07:30, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
While we do have an article on the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, that is not much of an achievement. We also have an article on the Flat Earth Society without claiming their scientific theories have any merit. And our A4M article mentions massive criticism of the organization by practically everybody not a member, including Aubrey de Grey who is himself a proponent of anti-aging medicine. If everybody from mainstream medical researchers to other anti-aging proponents has such a low opinion of A4M, they are hardly a reliable source. Furthermore, have a look at this comment about another of their publications, by Leonard Hayflick of UCSF:
The International Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine is not a recognized scientific journal. What I find reprehensible about this ‘journal’ is that advertisers who publish in it can then claim there is scientific evidence to support their outrageous assertions by pointing to the publication in an alleged scientific journal.
This is just one of the scathing assessments IJAAM received from the scientific community. Given that A4M still claimed it was a peer-reviewed journal, I don't think we can accept A4M's word on whether Anti-Aging Medical Therapeutics is peer-reviewed. Is there any such indication independent of A4M?
I have looked a little deeper into Becker's work. The most relevant patent seems to be this one, not the one you mentioned above. Here Becker explains the dedifferentiating properties of silver. There are several caveats. First of all, a patent application is not peer-reviewed. Secondly, Becker says: “The foregoing results mean to me that the electrically generated silver ion produces a transformation of tissue fibroblasts into relatively primitive cells resembling and possibly functioning like primitive cell types, e.g., hematopoietic marrow.” He is extremely cautious, with formulations such as “mean to me” and “resembling and possibly functioning”. If that were a research paper and not a patent application, I'd say he outlines a program for further research to confirm what he suspects. Has such additional research been carried out? I couldn't find any indication beyond the article I mentioned before, which was still in the “apparently” stage. Finally, despite renewed efforts I still found no indication that anybody else took up and confirmed Becker's work, which is rather surprising given its potential importance. Until such confirmation is available, I don't think we should emphasize Becker's work, and definitely not beyond what Becker himself says about his own level of success.
As an aside, you may want to discuss your suggested changes at the corresponding articles' talk pages: Talk:Life extension, Talk:Regeneration (biology) and Talk:Stem cell. That would probably allow more interested editors than just me to see them and comment on them. Huon (talk) 15:06, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Dear Huon,
Here are some after thoughts to my submissions last night.
In order to truly appreciate the work done by the late Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D. we must understand the following:
Becker was perhaps 50 years ahead of his time. This did create a lot of problems in his career. If you happen to get your hands on his Book The Body Electric you will see it is a beautiful manuscript on Limb Regeneration. Unfortunately in 1960s, talking about limb regeneration was a “suicide mission.” People in the scientific community were not ready for it. Yet Becker pursued with his dream. Scientist did not believe mature cell could be dedifferentiated back to their embryonic state. There was strong opposition to this in the scientific community.
So obviously, Robert Becker had to be very conservative in what he spoke out openly as he still wanted the scientific community to support his research. This can perhaps explain the word “apparently” on which you have laid stress in your earlier comments.
Though we all know we live in a freedom of speech society, we are all subjected to only cautious speech and arbitration of speech based on what the scientific community thinks is reasonable. The choice with the researcher is to downgrade his speech and writings or not get published at all. This is the due process of peer reviewing. They tell you what to write and what they (who perhaps do not know enough about the subject) think is reasonable or not.
These problems have plagued the late Dr. Becker’s career all along.
I see it happening to me all the time and I have to be cautious in what I say, do and write.
I am sure that Dr. Becker himself did not have the vision to see that he was the “grandfather” of stem cell work in the world and in the United States in particular. We learn to appreciate his work today when there is so much talk about Stem Cell Therapy, Regenerative Medicine and Limb Regeneration in particular. This is no longer a taboo subject of the 1960s and many prestigious universities in the United States are pursuing Limb Regeneration and the Department of Defense has provided millions of dollars in research grants for Limb Regeneration work, as it will one day help soldiers returning back from war to come back without permanent loss of limbs. Finger Regeneration is just the beginning.
Just 400 hundred years back Galileo (1609) was imprisoned for life for saying that the Earth was not the center of the universe and that the Earth was just a planet revolving around the Sun.
I trust the above insight will help you to take the right decisions.
Blessings, Pramod VoraPramod Vora (talk) 20:00, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Dear Huon,
Thank you for pointing out the earlier patent No. 4528265 filed by the late Dr. Robert Becker in May 1982 and granted in July 1985. You can see he had to struggle for more than 3 years to get it through. They also have a team of people who scrutinize the patents filed and you have to go back and forth to explain your point of view and justification for a grant of a patent.
All true scientists undergo a learning curve in their life. It only towards the end of their life that they know more about the truth, as it really exists in the universe, and have the courage to speak the truth as they have not too many more years to live.
The patent I have talked about 5814094 is filed in March 1996 and granted in September 1998. This is 14 years later when Dr. Becker was much closer to the truth and also much bolder in speaking the truth. See 14 years later he did not have to struggle for 3 whole years to get a patent. The world was more ready for this information and the barriers were gradually being broken down. This later patent shows progressive pictures of the world’s first documented adult Fingertip Regeneration done in 1995 with silver ions. We must rely on what he has to say in 1995 and in his other recent research papers published as late as 2000 and 2002 (whose links are on my website) to know what he knew and wanted to say towards the end of his life. Incidentally, he passed away in 2008 at the age of 84 years.
There is always criticism of all great organizations who step away from the conventional ways of the world and start something that is hard to digest in that particular time period they live in. I mentioned about the life of Galileo in my last correspondence. Again, every great organization also goes through a learning curve and may make some preliminary mistakes. What is important is to make sure that they have the right ethics and the right attitude / goals to do what is right for mankind. United States also undergoes a lot of criticism all over the world for what they do and don’t do. Does that make Untied States a bad country?
People and organizations who do something extraordinary in life are always criticized. They have to learn to accept it. If you do not want criticism you should do nothing at all and nobody will look at you or pay any attention.
Let us leave the controversy surrounding A4M on Wikipedia out of this discussion as we are not really wanting to modify their page. Let us focus on the scientific information given on the 3 pages we chose to edit and bring the information up to date to the year 2011. Also would the visitors to these 3 pages on Wikipedia appreciate this information and find it valuable in their understanding of science today?
Trust this dialogue will help you to do what is right for mankind.
Blessings, Pramod Vora Pramod Vora (talk) 20:50, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
The reason for putting all this up on the Discussion page is a follow up to the suggestion of user Huon (talk) who recommended that I put up these proposed changes on the Discussion page to allow other more interested editors to also offer their valuable comments and help to quickly reach a consensus on editing this page. The sole object of reproducing this previous discussion is to provide easy access to information on other research work done in the past so that other readers / editors are given the opportunity to quickly asses the merits of the proposed changes to bring this proposed edit to a final conclusion. An attempt is being made to bring the information on Wikipedia pages up to date for the benefit and progress of science and mankind in general.
Blessings,
Pramod Vora
Note for World Health Net Forum:
May I request help and support from readers who are knowledgeable in this subject to also post their opinion on this Wikipedia Discussion page. Let us make some head way for our long term goals in Anti-Aging & Regenerative Medicine by getting a few people involved who have solid credentials and stature in the field of medicine to voice their opinion. The tide will gradually change and the editors at Wikipedia will gradually change their mindset and begin to see our point of view. I am sure their perception will eventually change. We just need to keep the pressure on.
I await your support.
Blessings,
Pramod Vora
— Last Edited by Pramod Vora at 2011-08-23 13:14:22 —
