Promising perspectives towards regrowing a human arm

Human regeneration: An achievable goal or a dream?

The main objective of regenerative medicine is to replenish cells or tissues or even to restore different body parts that are lost or damaged due to disease, injury and aging. Several avenues have been explored over many decades to address the fascinating problem of regeneration at the cell, tissue and organ levels. Here we discuss some of the primary approaches adopted by researchers in the context of enhancing the regenerating ability of mammals. Natural regeneration can occur in different animal species, and the underlying mechanism is highly relevant to regenerative medicine-based intervention. Significant progress has been achieved in understanding the endogenous regeneration in urodeles and fishes with the hope that they could help to reach our goal of designing future strategies for human regeneration.

Regeneration and repair of human digits and limbs: fact and fiction

A variety of digit and limb repair and reconstruction methods have been used in different clinical settings, but regeneration remains an item on every plastic surgeon's "wish list." Although surgical salvage techniques are continually being improved, unreplantable digits and limbs are still abundant. We comprehensively review the structural and functional salvage methods in clinical practice, from the peeling injuries of small distal fingertips to multisegmented amputated limbs, and the developmental and tissue engineering approaches for regenerating human digits and limbs in the laboratory. Although surgical techniques have forged ahead, there are still situations in which digits and limbs are unreplantable. Advances in the field are delineated, and the regeneration processes of salamander limbs, lizard tails, and mouse digits and each component of tissue engineering approaches for digit- and limb-building are discussed. Although the current technology is promising, there are many challenges in human digit and limb regeneration. We hope this review inspires research on the critical gap between clinical and basic science, and leads to more sophisticated digit and limb loss rescue and regeneration innovations.