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Growing Teeth with Stem Cell Technology
davidoff404 writes "Lost a tooth lately? Well, a natural cure may be at hand. The BBC is reporting on a grant awarded to researchers at King's College, London, which they say will allow them to develop a technique for growing natural replacement teeth. Using recently developed techniques, stem cells can be programmed to develop into teeth, and then inserted into the gap in a patient's jaw. According to the BBC, the research has already been successfully performed on mice, and clinical trials on humans should begin within two years."
Looks like some one has been reading A Gift From Earth.
Old men with baby teeth, that just freaks me out.
It would be the Brits to start doing this though.
"I'm not high, just stupid" --JY
The article doesn't seem to say whether or not these teeth can be grown without fetal stem cells. Expect protest if so.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
While the growing of teeth is certainly an interesting and useful application of this technology, I personally would like to see how they handle connecting the nerves in the new teeth to the roots in the host.
Depending on how it's handled, it could possibly be applied to a number of other useful medical advances, such as helping repair nerve damage, prosthetic limbs, and spinal cord injuries.
Aren't stem cells wonderful things?
Your post reminds me of the riddle:
You move to a new town and there are only two dentists - one with really good teeth and one with really bad teeth. Which one do you choose to be your dentist?
Brownie points (and probably Karma too) to whoever gives the explanation along with their answer.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I recently got a couple of crowns; some 12 year-old fillings had failed, as they often do when they reach that age. I have a number of other fillings that will probably need to be replaced with crowns over the next few years.
At first I wished that the teeth could be replaced with new ones, but then I realized something. The originals lasted 10-12 years before succumbing to decay, and the filled teeth lasted another 12 years. The crowns are made of porcelain-coated steel. They look great, are impervious to decay, and will probably last for the rest of my life. Why would I want to replace them with the troublesome things that were there before?
I've been longing for the opposite: a complete replacement. Give me fake teeth that will never break or stain. Teeth that I can just roll down the window at the automated car wash and smile at the colored wax jets :) Teeth that can handle the abuse.
There is nothing more annoying for me than to be constantly reminded to brush and floss and visit the wallet-raping dentist twice a year. Heck, make them snap-on so I can take them out, toss them in a polishing machine for 30 seconds and be good for the day.
But don't go reinventing what's been broke since the dawn of time.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Fetal stem cell research is almost irrelevant. The Australians have extracted stem cells from baby teeth. It gives new meaning to why the tooth fairy leaves money. Then there is the process for extracting stem cells from body fat. Stem cell research does not need to be used as a reason for killing off unwanted pregnancies. Fetus's are not the only source of stem cells, they are just one of the first sources discovered.
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
I had a class in comparative vertebrate morphology last term, and we talked about this very issue. Highly innnervated teeth is a mammalian trait. Other vertebrates (reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, etc.) don't have a lot of nerves in their teeth. As you probably know, mammals have only two sets of teeth: the milk (or "baby") teeth and the adult teeth. The milk teeth fall out and are replaced during childhood/adolscence. Other vertebrates typically grow replacement teeth throughout their lives.
Why is this the case? Mammals process their food with their teeth much more than other vertebrates do. This allows us to eat more difficult things like tough plant parts and insects with hard exoskeletons that are unavailable as a food source to other vertebrates. This is one of the keys to mammalian success.
Mastication requires precise occlusion of the upper and lower teeth. Mammalian teeth have highly specialized forms for grinding, shearing, tearing, etc., and different regions of the jaw have different shapes of teeth. This precise occlusion is hard to maintain if teeth are constantly being lost and regrown, so mammals compromised: In exchange for really excellent, highly specialized teeth that allow them to exploit otherwise unavailable food resources, they only have two sets of teeth for their entire lives.
Here's a geek analogy: you have a certain amount of money you can spend on a new computer. Do you spend the big bucks and get a really great piece of hardware (like a G5 PowerMac or something) or do you buy rubbish and get two of them? Mammals decided to spend the big bucks and buy quality. Judging by the success of mammals, I'd say they made a good decision.
Having such awesome, precious teeth, mammals must protect them. The muscles of the jaw are easily strong enough to crush your teeth into powder. Having lots of nerves in teeth is one way that mammals prevent their teeth from premature destruction.
So how did mammals get away with only having two sets of teeth? Two ideas: 1) selection is weaker on older organisms that have already reproduced. Problems related to teeth wearing out are generally found among older individuals. 2) Primitive mammals were typically small (like the size of most rodents). Body size is positively correlated with lifespan in mammals, so the early mammals probably idn't live to be very old. Perhaps they didn't live long enough to wear out their teeth. By the time larger mammals evolved the dentition system was sort of set in stone, and they had to make do in other ways (and there are some amazing adaptations found among mammals for preserving their adult teeth as long as possible).
Bah. I take issue with this write-up.
This is exactly what my dentist told me too. However, the problem is with this line:
If a tooth's nerve tissue is present and healthy, wonderful.
No, not wonderful. If I could, I'd have all the nerves removed from my teeth. All they do is hurt every time I eat something cold. Having slightly receding gums makes it much worse than for normal people. I've had one root canal, and that tooth which used to hurt a lot when I ate ice cream now doesn't feel anything at all. Now if I could only have that done easily for the other teeth.