Graphic photographs of local technology prove its potential:

One man regrew a fingertip, fingernail included, with tissue-regenerative technology that someday could allow replacement of body parts.

That's what Sen. Arlen Specter witnessed yesterday during a tour of the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative in Pittsburgh Technology Park.

Mr. Specter then announced a $1.5 million Department of Defense grant he's ushering through Congress for PTEI to launch programs for hand transplantation, tissue regeneration and burn-injury technology.

PTEI Executive Director Alan J. Russell and director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said the goal is to develop technology to restore hands, fingers, faces, ears, noses and breasts, with long-range goals of regenerating arms, legs and internal organs.

In operation 11 years, PTEI is a collaboration of local universities, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and West Penn Allegheny Health System.

"It's enormously impressive," said Mr. Specter, R-Pa. The research could help 23,000 injured American soldiers, many of whom suffered "candidly grotesque" injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It's a marvel," Mr. Specter said of PTEI technology. "We are making our objective a congressional priority.

"I hope to bring more good news in the future," he said.

During the tour, Dr. Russell showed Mr. Specter a powder made from pig bladder that's placed at the severed end of a finger to promote regrowth of the fingertip.

A tube-like part made from porcine tissue also can be used to repair an esophagus damaged by cancer and promote regrowth. Stephen Badylak, the deputy director of McGowan Institute and a University of Pittsburgh regenerative expert, developed both technologies. It was his lab that Mr. Specter visited.

Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, chief of UPMC's Division of Plastic Surgery, said 20 hand and three face transplantations already have been done in Europe and China. One man who received hand transplants now can use a computer. Hand transplantation could get under way in Pittsburgh within a year or two.

"We're very close," Dr. Lee said. "There are a lot of advances that have been made both in our lab and other labs."

For now, a synergistic competition exists between advocates of transplantation vs. tissue regeneration. In transplantation, an organ or body part from a cadaver is used. In tissue regeneration, a process is used to encourage the body to regrow a damaged or severed body part, much the way starfish or salamanders regrow severed body parts. In time a hybrid of the two technologies likely will emerge, Dr. Lee said.

Transplanting hands, ears or noses would not be significantly different than transplanting internal organs, he said. Both require anti-rejection drugs to suppress the immune system so the transplant is not destroyed.

Dr. Russell said regenerative technology is progressing, as the regrown fingertip proves, with local research under way to regrow portions of the human heart to repair heart disease. The powder and esophageal technology soon will be available for use.

"PTEI is all about understanding how to support these endeavors," he said.