Scientist Stephen Bladvak discovered that a pig's bladder could significantly help injured war heros whom had lost their muscle tissue do to their injuries. His patients were badly injured and could no longer do easy activities such as getting in and out of cars or sometimes even walking. Bladvak used the pig bladder as a type of muscle fertilizer in order to regrow the muscle lost to scar tissue.
The patients who have been treated like this then went through physical exercises to help their muscles to begin to grow. Bladvak's most successful patients experienced 20% increase in their muscle growth in the first six months. He hopes to continue his research to see if the bladder can help in other places such as hernias.
Themes of Nature of Science:
Role of Motivation and Curiosity- The scientists were curious to see how they could help these people who were crippled with muscle problems.
Science is based on evidence- If the fist people who were experimented on did not prove to be successful, the scientists would have stopped trying. However, it worked.
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Wow! I found this very interesting, so I decided to do a little more research on my own. I found out that this technique is most commonly used in the quadricep of soldiers that have difficulty walking. But also they are getting close to experimenting on other muscles.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great find of an article! Im curious of the implications this could have outside of severe injuries. Could this work in people who have severe muscle issues such as muscular dystrophy? I'm excited to see where this research goes in the future.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting. I think it is incredible that scientists are finding ways to help people with problems like this. I also found that scientists are close to working with other muscles, which I think is really cool.
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