Deer Antlers for Regenerating Lost Limbs?

Could you lose one hand and grow back another? Cut off your ears and regrow another pair? Humans cannot do this, deer neither, but they shed their antlers annually and regenerate others, even bigger and this could come with some explanations for us. And deer are closer to us than the limb regenerating salamanders.

"There is no other mammal which loses an organ and it regenerates again", said Dr Stephen Haines, senior AgResearch scientist at Invermay.

"In two months in spring, each stag can grow between 8 and 10 kg (18-22 pounds) of velvet antler, a process driven by stem cells, the body's building blocks and from which a whole range of tissues develop. By understanding why antler regenerates, we might be able to influence human tissues. Instead of forming a scar, it could continue to grow another limb from a stump", said Haines.

"The antler shedding process could help scientists understand more about human tissue science and help with treatment following injury or disease. Who knows? We may never get there, but by understanding the biology we should come up with something relevant to human medicine", he added.

No matter if the deer velvet antlers fall by themselves or are cut off by farmers, the remaining wound forms a crust, and during the spring a new pair of antlers regrows. AgResearch has already patented a wound healing drug obtained through research made on stem cells coming from deer velvet and the company would like to investigate further those stem cells for getting products that make the lambs store muscles more rapidly, reaching killable weights sooner.

"If we can understand what is causing that, we might be able to understand how we can make cells in sheep grow into muscle quicker. The key is having easy access to stem cells from deer antler, as there are ethical issues about using stem cells from humans for research," said Haines.

Deer velvet antlers are full of blood vessels, and chemicals extracted from them led to a drug boosting blood to heal wounds. Invermay is treating with an international company about marketing and distributing this antler-produced drug.