Photo of mysterious "Proffr"

[mattd]

You'll have to hack into victorian motorbike and car license database for 
me but theres a cute little rattus australis here

http://smh.com.au/news/0201/12/national/national13.html

Soldering on: laser fusion changes microsurgery
  Sew far so good ... Professor Owen with leg-transplant rat. Photo: Nick Moir
By Claire O'Rourke
A new technique to join body tissue without stitches looks likely to 
revolutionise microsurgical procedures, reducing the time needed to perform 
operations.
Clinical trials of laser solder fusion, led by an 
Australian  surgeon,  Earl Owen, will begin this year.
If the attempts are successful, the method would radically change 
microsurgery, which is used to rejoin and transplant limbs, reverse 
vasectomies and restore severed nerves.
Professor Owen, the medical director of the Microsearch Foundation of 
Australia, said the time taken to join an artery would be reduced from 45 
minutes to two using the new technique, with less scarring and trauma.
"It's an enormous advance to pop on a solder and cure it with a laser beam 
in a matter of seconds," he said.
The technique involves welding tissues together using strips of protein 
fused by laser. It has been tested on rats, rabbits, sheep, pigs and 
greyhounds over the past five years.
Today marks two years since the first double hand transplant, on 
33-year-old Frenchman Denis Chatelier.
Mr Chatelier, who suffered the injuries when a home-made firework exploded, 
now has the co-ordination to make toys with his new hands.
"These people have convinced themselves long before [they have the 
operation] that they must have their body part restored," Professor Owen said.
Eleven people have had hand transplants in France, Italy, Austria, the US, 
China and Malaysia, with the success of the world's first hand transplant 
patient, Clint Hallam, paving the way for double hand transplants.
Hallam had the limb amputated in February last year, after he stopped 
taking anti-rejection medication. He is the only patient to have a 
transplanted hand removed.
But all was not lost when Hallam refused to continue his medication. 
Doctors were able to study the effects of rejection and how it can be 
anticipated.
As part of ongoing research, white rats are transplanted with limbs from 
black rats because they are the least compatible, enabling more effective 
testing of anti-rejection, or immunosuppressive, drugs.
Based in Lane Cove, the Microsearch Foundation of Australia is funded 
entirely by donation, and has never received government assistance since it 
started 25 years ago.
"We don't get funded anything like we should ...  as we're a small country 
with too much excellence than the Government can support," Professor Owen said.

If they reverse my vasectomy faustine and I...