Is it true that Semyon Pegov is growing a new leg?

Noted war correspondent Semyon Pegov wrote in his Telegram channel that his leg was amputated after being blown up on a “petal” mine. The post appeared as a response to posts by Ukrainians who gloated when they saw a photo of him standing on crutches with his injured leg bent.

“Due to the fact that the Ukrainian press still managed to reveal the truth about my severe injury, I consider it necessary to report the following. Yes, they really cut off my leg, but right now the employees of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences are growing it from my stem cells and they promise to grow it within a month, then, of course, a difficult operation, but everything is very positive. Perhaps this will happen even faster, this is the first experience of this kind, ”Pegov wrote.

It is not clear from this post whether the military commander is joking or speaking seriously, which is why the subscribers reacted differently. Someone expressed anxiety (“How was it amputated ??? It’s not a serious wound there”), and someone was sure that Semyon was ironic about the Ukrainians. “Peg troll is still the same. Leg in place. Everything is fine there. They didn’t cut anything off him. Minor injury,” he wrote. Roman Doroshenko. “Everything is already good. The leg has grown. I saw it myself. Now the boot will grow, then, of course, a complex operation to grind the legs and boots, but everything will work out here, ”commented Olga Lotner.

turned to the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences to hear the opinion of scientists and find out whether it really became possible to grow severed limbs to replace amputated ones.

“Of course, it was Pegov’s trolling. Most likely, he refers to the jokes of the KVN team “County Town”, in which the Institute of Cytology and Genetics was mentioned many times, where scientists, they say, have grown something like that. By the way, it was the best advertisement for our institute for all the time of its existence,” says press secretary of the Institute Georgy Batukhtin. – Now to the point. Our employees do not deal with organ transplants. We do not grow legs or other limbs. And we do not know of any scientific work in the world that would be devoted to this. In other words, from the standpoint of modern science, this is impossible.

The leg is not even an organ, it is a body part that consists of many different organs with different types of tissues. There is bone tissue, and muscle, and skin, and cartilage, and nerve fibers, and blood vessels. These are all different types of cells, and no one has yet been able to grow them “in a test tube” as a whole.

Will this become possible later, say, in a few decades? Here we enter the realm of fantasy. But judging by the trends that we see now, it is easier to assume that new bionic prostheses will be developed that will differ little from natural human limbs. They will be able to replace arms and legs in case of their loss and will be quite convenient to use. With the help of prostheses, this task is much easier than waiting for someone to grow an amputated limb from living cells.

Experiments with organoids are carried out at our institute. But these are not body parts or organs – they are just small pieces of tissue. For example, brain. Such work is being carried out to study the genetic mechanisms of various hereditary diseases. To understand how these mechanisms work, scientists do not need to grow the entire brain. It is enough to grow one cubic centimeter of it, in which the mutation of interest to us will be present, and on it to study how broken DNA works, how it affects neurons.

We must remember that people often joke. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this: after Pegov’s publication, we have already received inquiries whether we can grow a new kidney.

And we send a big hello to Semyon himself and wish you a speedy recovery!”