Fully Functional Bioengineered Tooth Grown In a Mouse

A couple of weeks back the Wall Street Journal reported on the first organ grown in vivo from stem cells — a tooth in the mouth of a mouse. Reader cdrpsab spotted the news on the MedGadget blog; the research had been reported earlier in the PNAS. From the WSJ: "The researchers at the Tokyo University of Science created a set of cells that contained genetic instructions to build a tooth, and then implanted this 'tooth germ' into the mouse's empty tooth socket. The tooth grew out of the socket and through the gums, as a natural tooth would. Once the engineered tooth matured, after 11 weeks, it had a similar shape, hardness and response to pain or stress as a natural tooth, and worked equally well for chewing. The researchers suggested that using similar techniques in humans could restore function to patients with organ failure."

Comments

I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jcr]

Of course, we all grow teeth at the beginning of our lives, but this friend of mine grew a new tooth when he was in his thirties. He had an extraction, and about two years later, a new one came in. He wasn't one of those people who start out with three ranks of teeth (that's pretty rare too, but not quite as rare a growing a new one as an adult. I think his case got written up in some dental journal.

-jcr

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[X0563511]

Got a bit of shark in him, eh?

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Z00L00K]

It wouldn't be bad if humans were able to grow new teeth every thirty to forty years or so.

Teeth wear down, cracks and so on so it would sure not be bad.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Starayo]

I had three of one of my front teeth when I was rather young. The second one was a gnarled twisted mass. :\

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jcr]

Not that I know of, but he wins more than he loses at poker.

-jcr

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[mehreen]

Wisdom tooth grows in a very old age, may be its wisdom tooth. http://www.topdogmarketinggroup.com/

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Thanshin]

I had three of one of my front teeth when I was rather young. The second one was a gnarled twisted mass. :\

Be grateful you hadn't born in ancient Sparta.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice, but I'd of gone with: "Don't play cards with that guy!"

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

To anybody wishing for this: be sure to specify that the teeth grow in the correct place. The alternative is rather gross.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[bluntshell]

So, I had a friend who regrew his foreskin twice after circumcision in a similar manner.... Actually, I believe his father did as well.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had three of one of my front teeth when I was rather young. The second one was a gnarled twisted mass. :\

Be grateful you hadn't born in ancient Sparta.

How is babby tooth formed?

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Krneki]

The only problem is, we were not supposed to live past the 40. Natural evolution can't adapt in 100 years. This is why we want to accelerate stuff now. :)

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jd2112]

Beats having a bit of him in a shark...

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

The first time I found out about teratomas I thought that there may be living Mandelbrot sets walking among us...

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[alc6379]

So, I had a friend who regrew his foreskin twice after circumcision in a similar manner.... Actually, I believe his father did as well.

Sounds to me that's natures way of saying, "Stop that shit!"

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Lumpy]

but you know what, if we could genetically turn on the tooth regrowing function in our bodies to give us our third set of teeth at say age 40 global health would go up drastically.

Most people have a incredibly horrid mess in their mouth. Dentistry is horribly overpriced and Dental insurance in the developed world is worthless so most people do not take care of their teeth. Your teeth health is directly coupled to your general health. If you have a mouth full of rotten and abscessed teeth your general health is going down, plus the continuous pain can easily be mis diagnosed as depression.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem is, we were not supposed to live past the 40.

[citation needed]. Seriously, a low (mid-40s) mean life expectancy DOES NOT mean that everyone lived to the age of 40-50 and then died. Longevity has always been comparable to today's numbers.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[interkin3tic]

100 years is plenty of time for evolution, at least for the vast majority of the earth's residents: bacteria.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[SilverEyes]

We seriously don't need more than two teeth. One top, one bottom.

"I hate flossing. I just wish I had one long curvy tooth. It didn't need to be split up. They didn't have to make separations with me. But then if my tooth would have fell out, it been bad."

- Mitch Hedburg

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Thirty years. Teeth last longer, but they get to be high maintenance past thirty years.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[sexybomber]

The 40-year average life expectancy for cavemen (which, I presume, is what you're referring to) isn't because they all tended to die around age 40; rather, IIRC, it's because they practiced infanticide with alarming regularity. That tends to drag the average down.

ex: Caveman Ug lives to be 78. Caveman Zug lives to be 72. However, Lil' Ug and Lil' Zug were both rather weak and sickly-looking babies, so they were both thrown off a cliff at age 2.

(78 + 72 + 2 + 2) / 4 = 38.5, QED

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

The 40-year average life expectancy for cavemen (which, I presume, is what you're referring to) isn't because they all tended to die around age 40; rather, IIRC, it's because they practiced infanticide with alarming regularity. That tends to drag the average down.

I would really like to know where you got the data to back up that assertion. Assuming you can back it up, of course.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you ask him to teach us how to do it? It would be the coolest OpenSource project?

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jamstar7]

The only problem is, we were not supposed to live past the 40.

Actually, a lot of people lived into their 60's and beyond, it's just that a lot of infants died that skewed the numbers downward. If you take the median between a person that lived to be 100 & a baby that died 10 mins after being born, you'd get an average life expectancy of 50 years. That's why they call it 'average'.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[cayenne8]

"Most people have a incredibly horrid mess in their mouth. "

Wow...where do you live where so many people have bad teeth? I rarely see that today in society.

I mean, unless you're in apalachia, or the projects...most everyone I see has pretty healthy teeth in the US wherever I've lived. The ones from the projects have lots of gold teeth to replace the bad ones I guess. They can't be doing all bad even on welfare if they can afford that...

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Alef]

Furthermore, during our 40 years or so, we were not supposed to eat food containing refined sugar (candy, cereals, pastries etc.) and drink fluids containing various acids (soda, fruit juice).

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Teeth ain't the only things that need more than a retread.

> The researchers suggested that using similar techniques in humans
> could restore function to patients with organ failure.

if ya know what I mean...

Fast track, peese!

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[telomerewhythere]

Go to a 3rd world country. Some friends of mine visited Georgia (the country) and traveled in the country. They said that most people their age (40s) would see their smiles and touch their own gums or want to touch my friends' teeth.

The Georgians couldn't believe my friends were in their 40s. The Georgians almost always didn't have teeth left. This was in the rural areas though. *shrug*

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Uniquitous]

Why does nature hate God?

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Hurricane78]

That's just plain wrong. Teeth are a living thing, that keep themselves alive and well. But if you eat that crap that we call "food" nowadays, they don't survive very long.
With species-appropriate teeth, you wouldn't even have to really brush them (just eat something harder).

I mean, who in his right mind thinks that our teeth are unable to withstand the very thing they are made for and are optimized to do since the dawn of times?
It's just that they weren't made for *this*.

But would you think your feet would wear down because you walk with them, and that you needed to replace them?
(Well, actually with "athlete shoes", they may get into trouble from too much [wrong] usage...)

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Hurricane78]

Yeah right. But god forbid those total retards would actually having to stop stuffing their ugly fat faces with truckloads of sugar and other trash. Noo, we can't have that! The sugar industry would lose jobs, when all those junkies would stop getting their fix.

But why stop there. Why not just run across the street in full traffic, and demand a replacement body, when it's ripped to parts then? Why not kill your liver with alcohol, and demand a replacement liver instead of dying like natural selection would have demanded it. Oh wait, we're already there.

Why not demand to stop thinking and do every wrong thing in the world, because yo have a right not to think. A right to get your ass wiped when you took a shit. A right to get you food and information pre-chewed. A right to become a total useless blob of fat, lying in bed 24/7, needing 7 men to turn you around, and a *fuckin' right* to get the 2 1/2 cases of big coke bottles delivered right to your bed, that you consume *PER DAY*!

Yes, I am bursting with anger. Yes you can stay in your mode of denial and mod me whatever you like. But you still know that I'm fuckin' right! This shit is so freakin' *wrong*, it boggles the mind! And you know it!

Or you can simply start eating like a human, instead of like a trashcan for cheap industrial waste, and stop listening to those pseudo-experts actually trying to convince you that the human tooth would also not be able to stand the very thing that it is made for (real food).

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[shaitand]

Actually yeah. If you look to the animal kingdom you will find that old animals do indeed have worn down teeth that are no longer sharp and effective.

Humans wear out joints, spines, feet, wrists, hearts, livers, kidneys, etc from those parts just doing what they were meant to do.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[shaitand]

I'd go with 25, then again at 40, and every 20 years thereafter up to the thousand we are supposed to live when they fix that pesky aging thing.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[shaitand]

There is a pretty big gap between the wealthy who can afford regular dental care and the projects you know.

Even among the wealthy who can afford dental care teeth are pretty awful, they are just covered up by pretty dental work.

There is nothing healthy about that capped and crowned mess just because it looks white and pristine.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[shaitand]

If technology surpasses the limitations then what difference does it make?

Perhaps we should stop traveling so much because we are meant to walk and give careful consideration to journeys. Perhaps we should stop using technology to save babies and just let natural selection do its thing.

What you have exercised some sort of masochistic restraint and the idea that someone else could both indulge AND be healthy pisses you off?

Besides, we have already been over this. Teeth DO wear out, that hard food you are talking about supplants brushing but it also wears down the enamel and your healthy living teeth don't grow it back.

In nature there are no shortage of older animals that die because their teeth are no longer functional. Especially among predators.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jcr]

Yes, I am bursting with anger.

You're a whole lot of fun at parties, I can tell.

Now for a nice, refreshing coca-cola.

-jcr

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jcr]

I mean, who in his right mind thinks that our teeth are unable to withstand the very thing they are made for and are optimized to do since the dawn of times?

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with physical anthropology, that's who. Back in the days when people lived as you advocate, they rarely made it to 40, and tooth loss was a major factor in their deaths.

-jcr

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[CorporateSuit]

I mean, unless you're in apalachia, or the projects...most everyone I see has pretty healthy teeth in the US wherever I've lived

Check out Europe, where the only place you can order dentail floss is where this guy shops; or Asia where being a snaggletooth is no excuse to not be a supermodel.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Mister_Stoopid]

Got a bit of shark in him, eh?

jcr: "No, Why?"
shark: "Does he want some?"

*rimshot*

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[sexconker]

Mass grave of baby skeletons at the foot of that tall cliff.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[f()rK()_Bomb]

Come to europe, im in ireland, people dont put anywhere near the emphasis on teeth ye do over in the states. Teeth are just tools for eating, if there arent hurting, who cares, is the general feeling =p

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[The_mad_linguist]

Dude, stop rAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGing for a moment and calm down. Seriously, no matter how good it might feel to rant and rave like a madman on the internet, it can't be good for your blood pressure.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people in Chicago, Detroit, New York have bad teeth, hell most of america according to the ADA. Actually most people that make $50,000 or less cant afford Dental care. I don't pay for any work on my mouth because I cant afford it. My daughter has $35,000 in orthodontics in her mouth, 60% of that was out of my cost, and most of her cleanings are 100% my cost. I have a cap that needs to be fixed, but I cant afford the $680.00 out of my pocket to fix it, so I bought my own dental glue online and re cemented it myself a year ago. you may believe that spending nearly $1000.00 out of pocket a month for dental for a family of 4 is chump change, the rest of us don't.

I also have a strong sense of smell and most people, even people I know make over $100,000K a year have abscessed teeth I can smell the infection on their breath. when you know what it smells like it's very obvious.

It's not just the hood and "da gangstas yo" that have bad teeth and dental care. 75% of Americans cant afford it. and parents skip it so they can afford it for their kids.

And don't get me started with the idiotic trend of bleaching the teeth white. Teeth are naturally a light yellowish color. Bright white teeth looks freakish. Then we have the raging idiots that have the teeth drilled so they can cement diamonds and gold grilles installed.

Oh guess what, my insurance is lowering what they cover again and raising my rates. Private insurance in America is the best!

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Lumpy]

Wow, did someone forget to take his meds this morning?

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jellomizer]

I think we are genetically designed to live normally to around 60 not 40. While back in them olden days the average life span was probably around 40 it was due more to factors such as disease from living in a civilizations that doesn't know about microorganisms. For the old man who lives in the oasis or outside from society. They probably lived naturally to around 60+. After 60 that is when the body really start to show its age, and breaks down.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Lotana]

You think it is so easy to avoid sugar in your diet?

Go talk to a diabetic. He will show you a list of things to avoid that will be quite long and include majority of food groups. Essentially nearly anything cheap or processed has sugar in it.

Now if you are careful and work on it, you can have a good diet without any sugar, but lets be honest here; Who wants to go through all the trouble of checking every nutritional label and change of lifestyle if it does not cause you trouble in short term?

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would really like to know where you got the data to back up that assertion...

Please post a citation to show what wants/needs your subconscious is feeding you... As far as we can see, you're just making things up.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jcr]

What's funny about a shark offering to be in a soup? Is there some kind of Douglas Adams angle I'm missing here?

-jcr

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jcr]

Can you ask him to teach us how to do it?

It wasn't through any deliberate effort on his part.

-jcr

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jesset77]

I .. want to *whoosh* here but I'm not sure if I'll just be *whooshed* for the trouble. 8I

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[jesset77]

With species-appropriate teeth, you wouldn't even have to really brush them (just eat something harder).

orly? Go tell the Elephants that, you insensitive clod. :/

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[Krneki]

Of course if you live in a paradise or if you are rich you will live past the 40. But for the rest of the mortals, bad food, no medical care, ignorance, .... will shorten the life.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[causality]

Yeah right. But god forbid those total retards would actually having to stop stuffing their ugly fat faces with truckloads of sugar and other trash. Noo, we can't have that! The sugar industry would lose jobs, when all those junkies would stop getting their fix.

But why stop there. Why not just run across the street in full traffic, and demand a replacement body, when it's ripped to parts then? Why not kill your liver with alcohol, and demand a replacement liver instead of dying like natural selection would have demanded it. Oh wait, we're already there.

Why not demand to stop thinking and do every wrong thing in the world, because yo have a right not to think. A right to get your ass wiped when you took a shit. A right to get you food and information pre-chewed. A right to become a total useless blob of fat, lying in bed 24/7, needing 7 men to turn you around, and a *fuckin' right* to get the 2 1/2 cases of big coke bottles delivered right to your bed, that you consume *PER DAY*!

Yes, I am bursting with anger. Yes you can stay in your mode of denial and mod me whatever you like. But you still know that I'm fuckin' right! This shit is so freakin' *wrong*, it boggles the mind! And you know it!

Or you can simply start eating like a human, instead of like a trashcan for cheap industrial waste, and stop listening to those pseudo-experts actually trying to convince you that the human tooth would also not be able to stand the very thing that it is made for (real food).

Your observations are quite correct. What's much harder to realize is that anger is part of the problem and will never lead you to the detachment, compassionate understanding, and agape love that would allow you to understand that the people who do these things do so out of profound ignorance, and that this ignorance makes them suffer much more than anything your rage would ever wish to do to them. Your anger has no power whatsoever to effect any kind of meaningful change; it just makes you suffer in a less material way than the practices about which you are upset. I want neither you nor them to suffer. The whole problem with evil or ignorance or whatever you want to call it is that it's infectious, and so we as human beings have a very hard time seeing it or dealing with it or suffering because of it without becoming negative ourselves.

Re:I have a friend who grew a tooth.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Dentistry is horribly overpriced and Dental insurance in the developed world is worthless so most people do not take care of their teeth.

I agree with the first part, and so I floss every day and brush with a good, soft toothbrush and use Xylitol-based toothpaste to kill plaque. No cavities in 10+ years, no dental insurance. As a kid, I ate candy and had several per year, so they're just regular teeth. Why would high prices lead to need for services?

Hu Hu

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see coming the spam update : "A new way to enlarge your pen1s"

Re:Hu Hu

[Dr Damage I]

Yeah, since it seems from the summary that you would first have to remove the original organ, I don't see that being an attractive option except for men with particularly severe problems. It would be one thing if the original organ was clearly too small to be functional (see link) but lopping off a perfectly good (if averagely endowed) penis? Seems pretty doubtful.

Re:Hu Hu

[adamchou]

then keep the original and grow a new one next to it. double the pleasure

Re:Hu Hu

[umghhh]

You are not looking far enuff. For instance why not having two sets - one for wify one for girlfriend? If one grows such additional organ on one's knee it would t hen give quite new meaning to the phrase" f.k yourself in knee'.

Re:Hu Hu

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you please send me information about your new penis enlarging teeth? I am intrigued...

Re:Hu Hu

[bluefoxlucid]

Shouldn't blow jobs work like penis pumps?

Re:Hu Hu

[Eccles]

I think above or below would probably be better for DP, don't know about DV or DA.

tyler durden says:-

[Anonymous Coward]

deliver me to perfect teeth!!!

Start small?

[sjwt]

how about we start small, lets say use this to regrow teeth for those who have lost them.

Re:Start small?

[johncadengo]

I think not.

You'd be putting the tooth fairy out of business.

Re:Start small?

[RuBLed]

The tooth fairy could suck it up with her clearly outdated business model.

Re:Start small?

[Anonymous Coward]

The tooth fairy would then receive a bailout package.

Re:Start small?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, they'll simply write a law making it illegal to re-grow your own teeth without approval from the tooth fairy, which has been given power by congress to legally represent all tooth-makers, even those which have never had any affiliation with her.

Re:Start small?

[dunkelfalke]

That's okay. She's a bogeyman anyway.

Re:Start small?

[supernova_hq]

Why, the old teeth would still fall out. In face, she would get extra from when the NEW teeth fall out!

Re:Start small?

[canonymous]

I dunno, we have no idea what she's doing with those teeth. I have a feeling she's getting more out of it than we are...

Re:Start small?

[Hitman_Frost]

She builds her castle out of them.

Re:Start small?

[Anonymous Coward]

Market glut. The value of teeth would plummet.

Re:Start small?

[Sebilrazen]

Given this advancement I foresee a drop in the price of her building materials.

Re:Start small?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows she is a Nazi Socialist who will not produce her birth certificate.

Re:Start small?

[aussie_a]

I don't see why its good to teach children that you should always look for a way to make a buck from everything. It leads to situations where people believe its actually illegal for companies to give up a small amount of profit in order to help make the world a better place. What's really scary is, it really COULD be illegal!

Re:Start small?

[PalmKiller]

She is harvesting the pulp and selling it, along with a detailed traits profile of the person it came from, to the military for dna analysis for their perfect soldier program.

Re:Start small?

[Chapter80]

Nah, they'll simply write a law making it illegal to re-grow your own teeth

Or perhaps write a law rewarding those who destroy perfectly good teeth, in an effort to save the environment, and the tooth fairy's job:

Cash for Choppers

Re:Start small?

[lena_10326]

I see the hair replacement industry picking this up and driving it.

Re:Start small?

[Underfoot]

Pratchett fan? Gotta love the Hogfather.

+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++

Re:Start small?

[supernova_hq]

Which raises the question: wtf does she DO with them???

Re:Start small?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that people will likely have several extra sets of teeth that can be removed and put under the pillow, the Tooth fairies could be well sorted. Perhaps they are bank rolling this research..........

Re:Start small?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it'd put her in hog heaven, people who lost teeth in the first place due to neglect may lose them again.

Squeek Squeek BITE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Squeek Squeek BITE!

Re:Squeek Squeek BITE!

[Yewbert]

Har! Actually, when I first read the headline, I pictured in my mind a *human* tooth growing in the mouse's mouth, rather than a normal mouse tooth, and imagined one mouse-lip snarled up over this huge, outsized growth. Unfortunately, today I'm not clever enough to come up with the perfect Far Side-like caption for that picture.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

go to ref 0000934823 increase appendage to 304.8 millimeters

Fully Functional Bioengineered Tooth Growing

[stephanruby]

Functional? Is this solution recursive?

Re:Fully Functional Bioengineered Tooth Growing

[maxwell demon]

No, but it works with higher-order functions. Instead of having a function "bite this", it uses a function "give me something to bite with".

Re:Fully Functional Bioengineered Tooth Growing

[K. S. Kyosuke]

As somebody noted above, it is. However, it may be not exactly the kind of recursivity you might find useful.

Strange Leap

[Toonol]

The researchers suggested that using similar techniques in humans could restore function to patients with organ failure."

The submitter got me, I have to admit. I was reading the summary, thinking that it would end with "could allow humans to regrow teeth"... but they pulled a zigzag, and went a different direction. Organs. Wow. Did M. Knight Shamalyan write this summary?

Re:Strange Leap

[alannon]

Honestly, I don't think that calling a tooth an organ is very much of a stretch. Teeth have their own blood vessels and nerves, and consist of a large proportion of living tissue. This little blurb provides what I think is a convincing, if hardly exhaustive, argument that teeth are organs.

Re:Strange Leap

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

The problem with growing organs is that in order to get cells to multiply you have to disable certain genes in those cells, or at least reset their counters. Which genes ? Well those that guard against cancer ...

Our bodies go to great lengths to prevent cells from multiplying anywhere and it is only allowed by the human DNA in very specific cases : blood production in the bone marrow, when a woman becomes pregnant, and just before a woman gives birth. There are others, but those are major modifications of human cell's normal reproduction. The body goes to great lengths to prevent cell division in organs once a human being is born, instead choosing to do the bulk of the necessary divisions before birth and then letting those already-existing cells enlarge instead of divide to make a child grow. That's not to say there is no cell division involved in growing a child, but a lot less than you'd think from the size difference.

All 3 of those exceptions are also major causes of cancer : leukemia, endometrial cancer and breast cancer.

Getting stuff to grow is easy, just kill of the p70 gene. Getting stuff to grow safely is hard. Very very hard. Loads of research still need to be done before this can really be risked in a live human being.

Re:Strange Leap

[OneSmartFellow]

I don't think that calling a tooth an organ is very much of a stretch.

Especially considering that bones are organs, and teeth and bone are very similar indeed !

Re:Strange Leap

[cnettel]

Solid. References. Now. (For the statement that a majority of growth to maturity just involves enlarging existing cells.) BTW, have you ever heard of osteoblasts and osteoclasts? Those cells are actively renewed and renewing bone throughout life, although they decline with age. You are certainly right that extremely rapid and "deep" division is limited in most organs, as you only need a few divisions and the wonderful gift of exponential growth to get just about any number of cells. The problem of organ regeneration is of course that the respecialization requires a number of "cell generations" in itself. There are some risks involved here, but the current techniques are not simply hardwiring the "on" mode for cell division. In fact, to get any real organ you need the natural "stop" modes and directed apoptosis just as much as you need the ability to start cell division in the first place.

Re:Strange Leap

[blahplusplus]

"Which genes ? Well those that guard against cancer ..."

Which brings up an interesting point... Since our lives depend critically on the controlled death (apoptosis) of cells. A lot of people don't fully grasp that controlled death of cells is absolutely critical to maintaining limb, bodily form, and organ integrity (eyes, hands, creating fingers)

You can see what happens here when when apoptosis goes wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Celldeath.jpg

Thank goodness for controlled cell death.

Re:Strange Leap

[maxwell demon]

Well, think of the possibilities. A church wouldn't have to get an organ built, it could simply be grown.

Re:Strange Leap

[fbjon]

Our bodies go to great lengths to prevent cells from multiplying anywhere and it is only allowed by the human DNA in very specific cases : blood production in the bone marrow, when a woman becomes pregnant, and just before a woman gives birth.

W. T. F.

Tell that to the numerous wounds I have received over the years, which no longer exist as if by magic.

Re:Strange Leap

[moon3]

Well there is a video on Youtube where they grow a hearth muscle that starts beating spontaneously, amazing and shocking stuff. So I am not surprised here, good piece of news to read about in the morning anyway.

Re:Strange Leap

[Sebilrazen]

I had to look at that image twice, my brain made it look like a normal foot the first time.

I'm not sure if I'd even call that webbed, at least tell me they could speak to fish.

Re:Strange Leap

[228e2]

The problem with growing organs is that in order to get cells to multiply you have to disable certain genes in those cells, or at least reset their counters ....

thats only 1 line of code that needs to be added . . . this shouldnt be too hard ;)

Re:Strange Leap

[MichaelSmith]

The problem with growing organs is that in order to get cells to multiply you have to disable certain genes in those cells, or at least reset their counters. Which genes ? Well those that guard against cancer ...

OTH cancer can often be treated with surgery to the point where the body can't do without the lost tissue. If the tissue can be regrown the surgery may not be such a bad idea. Maybe we have to prune our bodies like trees.

Re:Strange Leap

[Richard Kirk]

I can see Toonol's worries here. The ovaries contain single cells that ought to grow into a whole being when fertilized. Sometimes, these go wrong, and you get something else. These other things are usually hair, teeth, or occasionally eyes (eeww!). However, you don't get a fingernail or a kidney or a brain. This is probably because hair, teeth and eyes can be 'seeded' from a single cell, where other organs probably develop from a coordinated modification of a set of cells.

This is not to say that there isn't come magic genetic 'sudo' command that allows you to ask for a left kidney, medium size, but we haven't seen any sign of it yet.

Re:Strange Leap

[Missing_dc]

Tell that to Hedwig and his(?) angry inch.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0248845/

Re:Strange Leap

[d3ac0n]

Perhaps we can't "seed" a more complex organ such as a kidney, (Although I thought that eyes were pretty damn complex organs, what with the lenses and rods and cones and such.) but perhaps through study we can come to understand the more complex interactions of genomes that creates a kidney or a liver and one day grow replacement parts without the ghoulish proposition of cloned complete human "parts farms".

Of course, we all know that most of the research is going to end up in the breast augmentation and hair replacement fields anyway, so I guess we needn't worry too much.

Re:Strange Leap

[fifedrum]

don't underestimate the power of human desire for longevity. If it's possible, and people will pay for it, there certainly will be human parts farms consisting of whole bodies from which owners draw spares. Just give it some time.

Wasn't there a movie about this?

Anyway, yes, it'll happen. The only catch is the brain, if you can grow the bodies without one, there won't even be objections to having such a factory in your neighborhood. Imagine all the automobile plants converted to organ farms.

Re:Strange Leap

[Anonymous Coward]

Ofcourse he didn't...

Not only did I enjoy reading this but it made sense.

No way could Shyamalan write something possessing these qualities.

Re:Strange Leap

[Emb3rz]

Thank goodness for controlled cell death.

When will this egregious practice of planned cell abortion finally be ended?! Cells are living things too!

Disclaimer: while the above is definitely a joke, I firmly oppose abortion; doing so on the ground of ethics and morality based on Bible principles.

Re:Strange Leap

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And, living as you do in free society, no one can force you to undergo one. Yay!

Re:Strange Leap

[Andvari]

Getting stuff to grow is easy, just kill of the p70 gene. Getting stuff to grow safely is hard. Very very hard. Loads of research still need to be done before this can really be risked in a live human being.

would you care to give a reference for p70 being used to create iPS (induced pluripotency)? As far as I am aware the genes typically used are oct-4, sox2, c-myc, nanog, lin28, klf4 and p53 (both p53 and c-myc are oncogenes, the rest are not) Interestingly a paper was published a few months ago which describes a method for transient expression of these genes. This eliminates (or at least greatly reduces) the risk of cancer arising from stem cell treatment as the expression of any oncogenes is only long enough to revert the cell back to a pluripotent state.

Re:Strange Leap

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But be careful, if the g(G)odly MMO server admin finds you, he'll give you a permanent ban

Re:Strange Leap

[PainKilleR-CE]

In the short term, I'll be happy with teeth. Maybe when I'm older and have to worry about kidney failure or heart failure, I'll want them to have progressed to the point where they can simply grow a new one for me, but for now I'd like to see the ability for them to pull a rotten tooth out of my head and inject a few cells into the gum to regrow a tooth a few years from now rather than have to put in a bridge or some other garbage like they would now.

My wife's had problems with her teeth from a very young age, and we definitely worry about whether my daughter will have the same problems. Something like this would save her from a lot of problems in the long run if this were the case.

Sometimes, though, you get two whole people from those single cells when things go a little different from the plan. It's not really such a leap to go from a tooth to something more complex, it's just that people are taking research that one hopes will lead down this path and making the leap to think that this somehow makes it possible now, rather than in the future as the research advances down the path the researchers hope to follow.

Re:Strange Leap

[ezrec]

Parts: the Clonus Horror

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parts:_The_Clonus_Horror

Great movie idea. Horrible execution.

Re:Strange Leap

[cbaze19]

Yeah, new teeth could be beneficial to everyone I believe. But then again, organs could be nice!

Re:Strange Leap

[SilverEyes]

The MST3k version is worth watching. The interview with Robert Fiveson basically says that same thing "Great movie idea. Horrible execution."

Re:Strange Leap

[PiSkyHi]

hmm.... organ grinder.

Re:Strange Leap

[Thaelon]

What does it matter if teeth are organs? Our definition of organ is contrived based on observation to begin with.

This whole obsession with pigeon-hole-principal style of categorization, and the unwillingness to create new categories or modify existing ones seems to me to be a waste of time and irrelevant.

Is a tooth an organ? Who cares? We're going to keep chewing on them regardless of whether or not we call them organs or flaffynerfers.

Is pluto a planet or not? Who cares? It's going to keep right on spinning in space either way.

Are viruses considered life or not? Who cares? They exist, and will continue doing what they're doing regardless of how we classify them.

The arbitrary human-contrived category that a thing belongs to won't affect the thing itself, our time would be better spent studying the thing itself and ignoring the semi-arbitrary categories it may or may not belong to. There are more important things to worry about.

Re:Strange Leap

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to be able to inject a spot on my desk and grow a computer there. I think that's were this technology is leading, growable computers... or if I wanted some new sneakers I could just inject into my foot and grow some sneakers. With teeth on them and computers in the tongues, maybe some extra nueroreceptors under the heels.

Re:Strange Leap

[shaitand]

You are both right and wrong. You already know why you are right so let me cover the wrong part.

It matters in science and research because those definitions aren't being used conversationally or merely for communication. Those labels are being used for parts in theoretical models. If we can't come up with a consistent and coherent definition for electron then something being dubbed electron could break a lot of theories that say "an electron will do x if we do y" and hundreds of hypothesis based on that assumption.

Of course, at some point if the lines start to get too blurry and our models are breaking... well we are just going to have to come to terms with the fact that there are no damn electrons and we need a new fscking model.

I for one will be here to sex up the new hot model but that's another story.

Re:Strange Leap

[fifedrum]

I was thinking the movie with that guy and that girl and they're clones...

"The Island" actually. I enjoyed it.

So how long ...

[maxwell demon]

... until those grown third teeth are available for humans?

Organ Transplants?

[value_added]

How about restoring functions to ... teeth?

You don't need to be suffering from periodontal disease to know that missing or otherwise bad teeth are real enough issues for ordinary people. With the possible exception of friends from across the pond, of course. ;-)

Re:Organ Transplants?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that that is on the docket as well, once the kinks are worked out; but it has a rather different risk/reward ratio.

Implanting fake teeth isn't a terribly fun procedure, nor are fake teeth perfect; but our ability to replace teeth with synthetic equivalents is a hell of a lot better than our ability to replace most any other organ with synthetic equivalents(and, even if we don't bother, a missing tooth will kill you a lot more slowly than most other missing organs). For organs where synthetic replacements do not exist, and natural replacements are scarce and often require immunosuppressant drugs, taking a risk on experimental therapy is totally reasonable. For teeth, you want things to be worked out and well understood.

Re:Organ Transplants?

[value_added]

I suspect that that is on the docket as well, once the kinks are worked out; but it has a rather different risk/reward ratio.

But that's the part that I don't get. The article(s) as written make no mention of the value of growing teeth but instead talk about organ transplants.

As for the risk/reward ratio, isn't it the case, for example, that big pharma prefers to invest heavily in both R&D and advertising for drugs that are geared to ordinary problems for ordinary people rather than complex diseases? The way I understand it, a pill that cures baldness would be a money-making bonanza. A drug that helps with certain forms of cancer far less so.

For teeth, you want things to be worked out and well understood.

I do have friends with peridontal disease and I've had my share of root canals and caps so I'm reasonably familiar with some of the issues, but I appreciate your elaboration. Still, if the researchers can grow teeth, then don't all those problems go away?

The organ focus has merit, obviously. But more obvious is the immediate "Hey, we can grow teeth in mice!" There's a joke in there somewhere, but I hesitate to make one lest another over-eager moderator misinterprets it as "flaimbait". ;-)

Re:Organ Transplants?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod the parent up. While it is true that organ recreation is a great application, for 99% of the people, the possibility of growing a new tooth is more important. Why the flamebait? chances are that the article was just pointing up the most spectacular applications, not the most useful one...

Re:Organ Transplants?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I don't know why the article was written as it was, whether it accurately reflects the focus of the research, or is just the drivel that so often passes for science journalism.

My point was just that, with a new technique, particularly one using stem cells and stimulating cell growth, there might well be risks. Possibly nothing, possibly just a tendency to form benign tumors that have to be removed, possibly full blown cancer, possibly other stuff. For some organs, "Well, we can grow you a new one; but you might get cancer, we aren't really sure" is an extraordinary improvement over the present prospect, which is basically "die slowly until an organ becomes available. If you are lucky, you get to be on immunosuppressants for life." With teeth, though, that'd be an awful deal.

Once the kinks are worked out, on patients who are willing to take risks(and who would otherwise be facing $100,000+ transplant surgeries, so experimental procedures are an economic alternative) and the process is relatively safe and routine, I'd very much expect them to be pumping out teeth quite routinely.

It's a scam

[GreatBunzinni]

This is nothing but a scam to rip off the tooth fairy. Shame on you, science.

Re:It's a scam

[adamchou]

On the contrary, this will allow us to extract teeth and have new ones grown in, thereby providing the tooth fairy with an abundant supply of teeth. However beneficial this may be to the tooth fairy, it is actually detrimental to us. With the recession the way it is, countless families will resort to extracting their teeth to provide supplemental income from the quarters the tooth fairy leaves. Obviously, this will lead to a surge in the money supply and a subsequent devaluation of the dollar. This has bad written all over it.

Re:It's a scam

[supernova_hq]

You are assuming that the stem-cell induced new tooth costs less than 25 cents to grow...

Re:It's a scam

[aussie_a]

Wait, American families only hand out a quarter for a missing tooth? That's it? Is today's generation actually mollified by this? What can they spend a quarter on? A piece of lint?

Re:It's a scam

[Anonymous Coward]

  On the good side it means we can all get a Sega Dreamcast!

Re:It's a scam

[d3ac0n]

What can they spend a quarter on?

Ironically, pretty much just candy. Thankfully, not MUCH candy.

Re:It's a scam

[eln]

I don't know about anyone else's family, but a quarter hasn't been good enough in my family since I was a kid in the 1980s. These days, the usual price for one tooth is $2. The tooth fairy usually gives it in the form of a $2 bill, depending on whether or not she had time to go to the bank and get a $2 bill before the tooth fell out.

Re:It's a scam

[Anonymous Coward]

Supply and Demand, my dear Watson. If the supply of teeth goes up, then the price goes down. If anything, this will shove the classic 'quarter' price down to a dime.

And that's only 2 Snicker's bars per mouth of teeth!

Human Pancreas?

[JakartaDean]

Mr. Scientist, if you happen to get around to doing something like this for a human pancreas, could I order one please? Blood type B+, if it's not too much trouble. DNA available on request.

Yours sincerely,

Dean, on behalf of millions of Type I diabetics

P.S. I *love* hearing about this stuff. The potential for helping millions is incredible.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[maxwell demon]

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Therefore I guess your immune system would destroy your replacement pancreas just as it did with the original one. However IANAMD.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Merls the Sneaky]

If you are type 1 then your immune system would destroy any pancreatic islet cells implanted. Type 2 diabetics who are insulin resistant with a burnt out pancreas would be choicer targets for this type of therapy. Type 1 diabetics will be waiting for an immunological solution first.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Cyberax]

Yes, there are islet cell therapies on the horizon: http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/scireport/chapter7.asp

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

As a Type 1 diabetic myself it really makes my day when something new and cool like this pops up on my screen. I vaguely remember some doctor-or-some-such saying a few years back that diabetes is a disease that should have been cured (or at least fixable) 30 years ago. If not for the fact that medical companies have an income from insulin, needles, and other paraphernalia as stable as WoW subscriptions and probably a goodly bit bigger, it probably would have. Though I am pleased to see there have been actual, tangible improvements made in the few years I've lived with this damned malfunction, it scares and annoys the hell out of me that all the big money goes into making a disease/malfunction that kills more people than either cancer or AIDS a bit more manageable instead of fucking fixing it.

Fix 1 (don't know the current status of gene replacement therapy, but seems doable):
Why can't they just get the DNA of some thousand diabetes type 1 patients and healthy people on record, analyze it for the bits that stick out in diabetics, and use a virus to replace the defect bits? Isn't this the general idea behind gene replacement therapy? Follow up with auto-immune drugs used for transplant patients so we get rid of all the T-cells made for killing insulin producing cells, and transplant/grow a pancreas. I don't know.. it seems so god damned simple, yet IAJARG (I Am Just Another Random Geek) so I'm probably wrong.

Fix 2 (bit of a hazzle, but uses everyday techniques that any semi-large hospitals should have expertise on):
What about this? Transplanted organs are rejected by the auto-immune system. The little bastards are produced in the bone marrow (right?). This would mean that if my entire auto-immune system is wiped clean (with drugs every hospital has) and my bone marrow is replaced with donated marrow from a healthy person, I would in effect have that persons auto-immune system. As far as I can see, the new bone marrow isn't going to reject itself. It might reject the entire body it has been transplanted into but blood cancer is one of the least fatal cancers these days, right? Bone marrow transplant can't be that dangerous..? Again, transplant a pancreas (preferably from the same donor) or grow a new one. A couple of years of vaccinations and being sick and on antibiotics 24/7 later.. Voila, defective auto immune system is out, new one is up and running, new pancreas is in and the damned immune system doesn't attack it!

Could someone smarter than me please inform me why a disease, seemingly so simple to fix, remains uncured to this day with no big breakthroughs on the up-and-coming? Everyone gets their dose of daily cancer/AIDS/COPD/anti-drug propaganda. Everyone gets a visit now and then from someone collecting money for cancer research projects. At the same time, most people I talk to think diabetes means I have to take one shot a day (or a few pills) and the reply to how serious a condition it actually is usually boils down to "You can die from diabetes..? *disbelief*", "You sure you aren't making that up?" or "LOL, why haven't I ever heard of anyone dying of it then?".

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Kryis]

Different people have different "strengths" of immune reaction. I've been diagnosed T1 diabetic for over a year now (and had symptoms for quite a while before I was diagnosed), and I am either incredibly sensitive to injected insulin, or my body hasn't quite managed to totally kill of my pancreas yet. Some people go from perfectly healthy to a coma in a matter of weeks, others like me can last much longer; If it has taken my body this long to destroy my pancreatic islet cells, then maybe a "top up" every year or so may do just about enough to push my pancreas to produce enough insulin to give up the injections.

T1 diabetics sometimes get pancreas transplants. I believe that sometimes the islet cells give up within a matter of months, other times an individual may be free from insulin injections for a couple of years [citation needed]

Re:Human Pancreas?

[cnettel]

I seem to remember that beta cell transplants have in some cases been reasonably successful, i.e. only battling the normal rejection problems. If you get the autoimmune reaction at one point, you can trigger Type I diabetes. If the reaction is complete enough, the cells in the pancreas will never replenish on their own, while the immune system might reenter a more normalized state, on its own or through immunosuppressive treatment.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Cyberax]

Fix 1: we don't yet know reliable and safe ways to transplant genes using viruses.

Fix 2: way worse than the disease for most of people.

A much more sane variant of Fix 2 is transplantation of islet cells, grown from patient's own stem cells. I'm sure one day it'll be there.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

I also seem to remember an article about a female professor at a British university who cured rats who's pancreas had been removed. I can't for the life of me find the article, but the process as described consisted of treating the rats with one common drug that kills white blood cells and another drug that had a less-known side effect of somehow making the auto-immune system not produce the beta-cell attacking basta.. *cough* cells.

This research was done to find a way to prepare a patient for transplant and stop the auto-immune system from immediately destroying the new pancreas. To her great surprise, it seems the spleen produced or released stem cells of some sort that started producing insulin. The rats only needed to stop producing the hostile white blood cells after which they fixed the missing beta-cells themselves.

In light of this, I want that god damned bone marrow transplant, in effect getting someone else's auto-immune system. Has this been tried on diabetics? Has any positive changes been observed, f.ex. in a diabetic patient treated for blood cancer?

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

Fix 1: we don't yet know reliable and safe ways to transplant genes using viruses.

Well, except for the test subjects that had a genetic disorder which caused cells in their retinas to have such reduced light sensitivity as to render them blind. Several times has conditions such as this been treated using gene replacement treatment with levels of success ranging from being able to discern motion to reading, all within the first few weeks of the treatment. I don't remember the original article, so I'm just going to link to a random one that seems to talk about the same general thing: Gene therapy restores vision in nearly blind patients

Fix 2: way worse than the disease for most of people.

A much more sane variant of Fix 2 is transplantation of islet cells, grown from patient's own stem cells. I'm sure one day it'll be there.

Quite an arrogant thing for you to say (assuming that you, for the sake of validity of your argument, would have told us if you actually have diabetes). I would accept, without a single moments hesitation, having my immune system shut down, having bone marrow and (later) a new pancreas transplanted and living in a bubble for a couple of years. It boils down to this: no treatment, 60 years of drawing blood and injecting insulin several times a day and still you die from complications (assuming you don't get cancer or get hit by a car or something). Or! Go through a very, very uncomfortable

Ok, I might be a bit overly dramatic there. If I go on a no-carb diet and measure my blood glucose 5 times a day I might avoid any complications until I reach 70, at which point I will likely have loads of other shit to worry about. Still, there isn't even a questing of whether I'd do it or not but rather "Would it work?" and if so "How/where do I get it done? Can you start tomorrow? Later today?".

Read up. If transplanting islet cells worked, transplanting whole pancreases would work as well. Aside from the problems associated with other organ transplants (finding a donor the body won't immediately reject), there is the slight problem that a diabetics body will attack any insulin producing cells no matter who's stem cells they are grown from. Giving a type 1 diabetic an organ/islet transplant is like refilling a blown tire. Until you patch up the tire (gene replacement) or get a new one (bone marrow transplant), you will achieve nothing by refilling it past perhaps getting out of the gas station parking lot.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Merls the Sneaky]

http://www.novocell.com/tech/encapsulation.html

Those guys are using cell encapsulation as a way to hide islet cells from the immune system, it is showing very promising results. Of course a decent supply of transplant material is still a problem.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Merls the Sneaky]

Transplants require immunosuppressants so are really only open to those already undergoing a kidney transplant.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

Damnit!

Or! Go through a very, very uncomfortable <5 years of treatment near-eliminating all the complications like blindness, kidney failure, stroke, heart disease, neuropathy (feeling like your legs are on fire, sometimes even after the amputation), giving you an indescribable increase in life quality as well as extending your now-bettered life by 10-20 years, no longer having your loved ones worried sick because you might keel over and die any time because your body decides to produce some insulin for a few days or your insulin resistance changes...

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Cyberax]

No, I don't have diabetes, but my girlfriend does. Believe me, I understand that it can be miserable and painful. And I also know about multitude of complications resulting from diabetes (like feet rotting and falling off or kidney diseases).

Transplantation of the whole pancreas is possible. It's actually routinely performed right now. However, bear in mind that 1 year survival is about 95% and 10% patients still have to use insulin injections even after transplantation. And don't forget lifetime use of immunosuppresants.

Refilling a blown tire might be a good analogy for some proposed treatments. An injection of islet cells once a year might be much more tolerable than the life of continuous immune suppression.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Anonymous Coward]

If mouse teeth are grown in mice, where do you expect they would grow human organs? On the other hand, if you have the money, who cares, right?

We do agree on the importance and potence of this issue.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

Note that the text hasn't been updated since ~2005 and their initial human trial was, according to them, a success. To a diabetic, a staggering, mindblowing success! Apparently, the islets were injected subcutaneously whereupon they went on to regulate the test subjects blood glucose levels for up to 20 months, without long term immunosuppression! Why am I not receiving this treatment right now? Can I sue the Norwegian government for attempted murder? =(

Yes, yes, availability of spare parts etc. Screw that. Abolish religion's hold on law and politics and enforce organ harvesting from anyone declared dead possessing spare parts of value to someone still living.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Kryis]

Quite an arrogant thing for you to say (assuming that you, for the sake of validity of your argument, would have told us if you actually have diabetes).

It may be arrogant, but they are, in my opinion, right. If you put effort in to actually controlling diabetes, you should be able to avoid complications for most of your life. I know a couple of diabetics with T1 for over 40 years and no complications; I have spoken with diabetics who have had it for over 50 years with minimal complications. These are people that, initially, could only test their urine for glucose, they had no idea what their blood sugar was doing, and they had horrible peaky insulins which made it difficult to prevent lows/ highs. Why can't we achieve the same thing with infinitely better glucose monitoring and insulin with vaguely sensible action profiles? Why spend years of your life in pain with a series of procedures that may not work (and might even kill you) to try to prevent complications that may not even happen if you control your diabetes correctly?

I, for one, think that regular "top ups" of islet cells produced with the patients own genetic material is the way to go.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[smellsofbikes]

Since I don't see responses saying the sort of things I'd say, I'll go ahead and say what I was going to say.

Retroviral treatment sometimes works. The problem is we don't have any way of telling where to put the genes we're inserting, and if they insert in the wrong place, the cell could do nasty things: become cancerous, start pumping out odd hormones, start pumping out herpesvirus, are a few that come to mind. It can be done, and has been done, but it's not easy.

Replacement of the entire auto-immune system is really difficult. People have done this experimentally. I worked on a project that was curing feline leukemia virus by doing this. We had a 30% cure rate, a 10% failure rate (cat ended up dying of FLV anyway), and a 60% mortality rate. The problem is that it's very difficult to kill off 100% of the patient's immune system without killing the patient, and if there's anything left, then you have an immune system sumo fight inside the person's body. Growing a new pancreas is absolutely the best option, and people are working on exactly this, very hard. The main problem is that it's difficult to get larger, more complex organs to grow because they rely on adjacent tissues to get their structure right -- it's a fractal sort of process. So unless you grow the whole body, it's hard to do. But (as someone else mentioned) building what amount to micro-pancreas structures in small encapsulated chunks and putting them in the body, seems to be a good approach. I think Type I diabetes will be fixed within 15 years. It's easier than Type II. But it's still not easy.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[corbettw]

Screw the pancreas, I'm gonna need a liver in about twenty years.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

I'll start at the bottom and say of course, as an ongoing "top up" type treatment islet cell transplants sounds absolutely fantastic.

If what you say about those people is true, I am hard pressed to believe they actually have fully fledged diabetes (rather, a gradual one where they take insulin and the body does the fine tuning or something). I have fairly decent control of my blood glucose, but the only time of my life where I achieved even remotely close to consistent, normal and healthy levels was when I tried a ketose diet for a month or so eating only fat and protein, nearly removing any need for insulin at all. Yes, I could live that way for the rest of my life and avoid horrible complications at the cost of far less horrible ones and an inhuman regimen of eating. Or.. here's a thought! Someone with the financial means to do so, get their heads out of their asses and cure the disease that kills more people than breast cancer and AIDS combined! How often do you hear "cancer" in the main media? How often do you even hear diabetes mentioned at all..?

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Firehawk]

You are seriously underestimating the potential of graft versus host disease. Seriously. You do not want to eliminate your own immune system only to get a whole new one which will recognize your body as foreign.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Kryis]

As far as I know, these are people with full-blown T1 diabetes, requiring fairly average amounts of insulin (I believe 0.5u insulin per KG body weight is a good rough guide).

What insulin(s) do you take? And how do you calculate your doses? There seem to be a lot of people who do the same dose every day, with corrections by their GP/consultant every 6-12 months based on their HbA1c. I don't see how this can lead to anything but bad control.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Anonymous Coward]

All "regular" diabetes is related to immune system. Yes, including Type 2. There is also belief that Alzheimer is a Type 3 diabetes, which is also related to immune system overreaction.

Finally, it is the spleen that generates insulin producing cells. People that had their spleen removed will almost certainly develop diabetes few years after the operation. This one of course is caused by lack of new supply of replacement cells not the immune system.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[innerweb]

Type I diabetes might be the result of an autoimmune disease. It also might be the result of an infection, an accident, a genetic issue or anything else that might cause the body to stop producing insulin. Type I diabetes only means that the body no longer produces insulin. It has no indication as to why the body stopped producing insulin. BTW, type II means the body is insulin resistant, that the insulin the body does produce is not used as effectively as a normal body would. Both of these designations are a diagnosis of a condition, not a cause.

InnerWeb

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Therefore I guess your immune system would destroy your replacement pancreas just as it did with the original one. However IANAMD.

Looks that way.

And they've (very) recently come up with a short-term (weeks) drug therapy to cause the rejection segment of the immune system to reset and recognize whatever tissue you currently have, including transplants, as "self". Islet tissue in diabetes-I-model rats was what they tested it with, too, if I recall correctly, and resuming insulin production was the indicator that it had succeeded.

Hazardous of course. Impairs the immune system while the therapy in progress. (And I'd certainly expect raised cancer risk, from any tiny tumors your body was currently fighting.)

If that works out the immune system issue may be solved.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Eivind Eklund]

Ref diabetes: Have you seen anything about what's happening with the capsaicin treatments for diabetes? See e.g. http://www.naturalnews.com/021345.html (also previously discussed on Slashdot.)

The researcher that originally reported it don't seem to have made any publications that seem directly relevant, see his sickkids.ca page.

Eivind.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

Heh, you can't calculate insulin needs by bodyweight. That would be like.. I don't know.. calculating a car's fuel consumption by it's weight. With diabetes, you have to take into consideration

• the amount of carbohydrates you eat
• the glycemic index of your food and..
• how proteins, fat and fiber affect your digestion
• your emotional state
• whether your body is working fighting off germs or some such
• your activity level the past 48 hours (resistance training affects metabolism that long) as well as the coming few hours

I take 26 units of Lilly Humulin every night, and whatever amount of Lilly Humalog seems to make sense for what I am about to eat, a few minutes before each meal.

If those people don't experience severe complications within 10 years they have diabetes type 2, not type 1. Many T2's just need a regular chunk of insulin and the body does the fine tuning itself. If you try that with a T1 diabetic, you're either going to end up with death by hypoglycemia, or HbA1c values that are even worse than mine! =P

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Kryis]

I know you can't calculate exact doses with body weight, but most T1 diabetics with a sensible diet will end up taking somewhere between 0.4 and 0.6 units of insulin per kg of body weight a day, with about half of that being basal. If your doses fit somewhere in this range, I would imagine that you aren't overly sensitive or resistant to insulin. I'll try to find some evidence to back this up when I have access to a few if my books.

How do you calculate what "makes sense" for each meal? Do you just look at your plate and guess? Or is there some maths involved?

And I didn't realise you had to have severe complications within X years of diagnosis to be classed as T1. There is evidence to suggest that C-peptide (a byproduct of insulin production in the body) actually has some use in repairing microvascular damage. C-peptide was found in the animal insulins used before the (relatively) recent switch to human analog insulins. Perhaps the presence of C-peptide in their insulin injections went some way towards preventing some of the damage they may have otherwise had. The odds are that someone diagnosed at the age of about 6 in the 1960s is a T1. The chances that someone else diagnosed at the age of 7 in 1959 who is now on an insulin pump in the UK is even more likely to be T1, seeing how T2 diabetics basically don't get pumps in the UK, and to get one you have to show a requirement for the fine dose control that you get with a pump; this doesn't fit with your theory that T2 diabetics just need to inject some insulin and the body will sort out the rest.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[JakartaDean]

I'm late replying, but thanks for that link. Novocell seem to have both a technique (under development) for encouraging human stem cells to become insulin-producing pancreatic cells and a promising technique for hiding them from the immune system. I'd heard of both of these years ago, but it seems like they're closer now than I thought. (As an aside, I don't track the research much any more -- too often journalists tout a cure "around the corner" then we hear nothing for years. It's better not to get one's hopes up, in my opinion.)

Dean

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Merls the Sneaky]

http://www.novocell.com/news/

Last update to their progress June this year.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Merls the Sneaky]

That's why I skim the journalistic articles and got straight for as company website. I actually found out about novocell from an article on /.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

Well I'll be.. That's amazing! *reads link*

Wait.. Patent, award, internal politics, grant, patent..

I fail to see where it says "diabetes cured" or "breakthrough in diabetes management", like I can't help feeling it should as they did human trials successfully 3 years ago.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

Checking those numbers, I end up at 34 to 51 units of insulin per day. I'm not sure what the definition of "basal" is. Is that the type of insulin that clocks in between fast and slow acting? That many people take in the morning, in addition to fast acting for each meal? I have never been recommended that, or even been told about it. The so-called specialists over here are horribly out-of-date it would seem. =/

Anyways.. At the moment I do a lot of resistance training as that is what impacts insulin sensitivity and metabolism the most. I eat 4-5 reasonably healthy (limited carb, well rounded) meals a day and I still have to take roughy 12-15 units per meal. That's 48-75 units per day, and my HbA1c is still too high.

As for calculating.. Yes, I just "look at the plate and guess". I know the difference between eating potato, pasta and bread as opposed to eating broccoli, brusselsprouts and meat. I usually hit the mark fairly well but now and then I have a fruit or eat something I'd usually not, and overall the effect is a too high HbA1c.

On the upside though.. I just had a full battery of bloodworks done and my good cholesterol is higher and my bad is lower than an average healthy person my age. My kidney function is 100% and there is no sign of damage to my retinas.

If you say your friends have T1 I can't really say anything except that I have insane respect for them and their parents for keeping the insane level of diet control needed for a diabetic, especially back when blood glucose meters didn't exist! Still though, I consider having T2 a luxury problem. They do have insulin production, meaning their bodies do actually take care of the fine-tuning and most of them can get by fine by either working out and eating healthy, taking pills to lower resistance or worst-case, taking basal insulin.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Kryis]

Checking those numbers, I end up at 34 to 51 units of insulin per day. I'm not sure what the definition of "basal" is. Is that the type of insulin that clocks in between fast and slow acting? That many people take in the morning, in addition to fast acting for each meal? I have never been recommended that, or even been told about it. The so-called specialists over here are horribly out-of-date it would seem. =/

Basal insulin is designed to balance against the sugar output of the liver that takes place between meals. Typically, newly diagnosed diabetics are prescribed Lantus or Levemir for this purpose.

As for calculating.. Yes, I just "look at the plate and guess". I know the difference between eating potato, pasta and bread as opposed to eating broccoli, brusselsprouts and meat. I usually hit the mark fairly well but now and then I have a fruit or eat something I'd usually not, and overall the effect is a too high HbA1c.

**I don't recommend changing your doses without a doctors advice**

Have you ever tried calculating the amount of carbohydrate in each meal? The carbohydrate content of most food is listed on the packaging, and when it isn't, sites like http://www.calorieking.com/ are useful. http://www.diabetesdaily.com/forum/articles/4579-counting-carbohydrates-how-why - This is a good article on counting carbohydrate ( http://www.diabetesdaily.com/ is a very useful site. Some stuff is very informative, some is just plain wrong; sadly, you have to work out which is which yourself. Again, I don't recommend changing things without a doctors advice). Once you know how to count the amount of carbohydrate in your food, you should be able to get an idea of how much insulin you need to take to cover a given amount of carbohydrate. The easiest way I found of doing this was to work out the carbs in a meal, guess the dose needed and write down the results. From a few days readings, you should be able to see what sort of insulin:carbohydrate ratios work for you.

On the upside though.. I just had a full battery of bloodworks done and my good cholesterol is higher and my bad is lower than an average healthy person my age. My kidney function is 100% and there is no sign of damage to my retinas.

Congratulations, it is always good to hear that someone is getting by without complications.

Still though, I consider having T2 a luxury problem. They do have insulin production, meaning their bodies do actually take care of the fine-tuning and most of them can get by fine by either working out and eating healthy, taking pills to lower resistance or worst-case, taking basal insulin.

Have you ever spoken to a T2 diabetic who is seriously trying to control their diabetes? Most don't have the ability to give a dose of insulin if their blood sugar is high to bring it back down, and their anti-resistance medication can only do so much. To get non-diabetic numbers, a lot of T2 diabetics seem to need to eat less than 100g carbs a day and in some cases, less than 50g carbs a day. T2s don't have to worry about DKA, T1s have more freedom with their diet; Both a pretty crap things to have to put up with, and I wouldn't choose one over the other.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[plastbox]

I keep reading about this insulin:carbohydrate ratio thing online. Perhaps I will give it a more serious, scientific-minded try! Sadly, my hospitals diabetes specialist couldn't answer my mothers (a few years back, have since cut the cord =P ) questions regarding protein powder and possible effects on diabetes. The (only) diabetes nutrition expert at the same hospital told us that protein powder was b/s as I would get must as much protein from two slices of bread with cheese as a 60g shake containing 98% protein. The only help available is researching stuff myself and trying it out. Sad state of affairs.

I might be a huge asshat for saying this but in the vast majority of cases T2 is a lifestyle disease. Ergo, don't be vastly overweight, eat well and perhaps even work out a bit, and this will never be a problem for you. Likewise, your statement claims that there are T2's who have a hard time controlling their disease. On the other hand, there are T2's nearly completely rid themselves of the disease by loosing weight, educating themselves on nutrition and working out. That last bit isn't an option for a T1. We can't simply put in an effort and end up all better. It's a life-long effort on par with what the T2's that get healthy put in, just to avoid severe complications.

So yes, I would choose T2 over T1 any day! There are times when I even think I'd choose cancer over T1, for the chance of actually having my health restored.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Kryis]

I really would recommend joining a site like Diabetes Daily. I have been there since about a week after I was diagnosed, and the opportunity to discuss problems I was having with other diabetics has proved invaluable. As I said before, you have to apply some common sense to some of the advice given there, but being able to have a conversation with somone who actually understands what going high/low actually feels like and may have experienced similar problems to you is very beneficial.

Old News?

[zombie_striptease]

I seem to recall reading an article many years ago about a trial in the UK in which this same technique was working quite well on humans. Of course I can't seem to track down the article now, and the closest thing I did find was this article from five years ago about a business providing this service. Unfortunately, it only muddies the waters further by including the line "To date, no companies or research groups in the world have been able to demonstrate the formation of a living, natural tooth." Does anyone else remember the trial I mentioned or am I just imagining things again?

Re:Old News?

[supernova_hq]

Found It

I have bad teeth

[mcrbids]

They're horrible, and I live in the United States, a culture where teeth are perfect and white or you are nothing. My wife has beautiful teeth, and despite the fact that we have nearly identical brushing and dental care habits, my teeth are horrid, yellow, and falling to pieces, hers are beautiful, white, and basically no cavities.

Sorry - not all teeth are created equal.

So here I am, 30-something, fairly affluent, and having horrid teeth. You think I wouldn't hesitate to spend a few Gs replacing my craptastic old teeth with new teeth with zero chance of rejection? Sure, they will go yellow quickly, just like the last ones did, but that means I'm in my 80s or later before my teeth are in any way unusual. And effectively, that means good teeth for life.

I've been waiting for this kind of treatment. Where do I sign up?

Re:I have bad teeth

[supernova_hq]

I'm pretty sure those whitening kits would be much cheaper.

Re:I have bad teeth

[L4t3r4lu5]

You sign up with the people who aren't religious zealots, believing that life begins at conception and preventing the use of embrionic stem cells. You might believe that too, but I don't believe anyone with any religious affiliation or indoctrination belongs in Politics.

Creating stem cells from other tissues is possible, but adds extra costs. We all know how pharmaceutical companies love to throw money away, don't we...

Seriously, though, this is a lab test. Human trials are so far into the future your kids might benefit from it. After you're dead. Until then, all we can do is try and get logically and critically thinking politicians in positions to effect policy on the subject. If not, some Christian fool (not saying all Christians are fools; YMMV) will say "Wow, you want to do this to humans? Sorry, bub. God is the only one allowed that power." And the whole world returns to the Middle Ages (which is where we are now, really. Apart from drugs and better hygiene, all we have are butchers. Some are foot butchers, some are heart butchers, some are tooth butchers. They all still just cut the dead stuff away and sew replacements in their place.)

Re:I have bad teeth

[Zontar The Mindless]

I'm pretty sure those whitening kits would be much cheaper.

They don't do much to help teeth that are literally crumbling in your mouth (or did you miss the "falling to pieces" bit in the GP?), and they are most definitely not cheaper than the bridge I had to get earlier this year.

(Had a front tooth broken/knocked out a few years back, and the same accident cracked the teeth on either side of that one.)

Re:I have bad teeth

[TimSSG]

You sign up with the people who aren't religious zealots, believing that life begins at conception and preventing the use of embrionic stem cells.

The above is false if you live in the USA. The embryonic stem cells research was never illegal just denied Government funding in most cases. If you do not live in the USA, what country denied the use of embryonic stem cells research. Tim S.

Re:I have bad teeth

[Anonymous Coward]

If it troubles you so much move to England.

Re:I have bad teeth

[MadKeithV]

Get tooth implants and a nice set of artificial teeth. You can get them in titanium base with all kinds of excellent, very natural veneers - and they'll last longer than any natural teeth.
Not cheap, not pleasant, but a very lasting solution.

Re:I have bad teeth

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you wife's teeth detachable, and does she put them in a glass by the bedside overnight?

Re:I have bad teeth

[Anonymous Coward]

Treatment? You sure sound pretty intelligent for a mouse

Re:I have bad teeth

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've been waiting for this kind of treatment. Where do I sign up?"

You'll be in your 80s before this is accepted.

If you follow medical treatment, stuff that comes up is rarely ever implemented, mainly due to patents, laziness, threat of lawsuits, inventors/business wannabe be paid far more than the treatment is worth, FDA regulations, some muppet whines about safety and testing that has nothing to do with safety or testing, etc.

See the post about someone asking for a new pancreas (really asking for new insulin producing cells). In the late 90s, this could have been done. There were engineered islet cells. There were protective material that only let the insulin through. Both were biocompatible. Did it ever come to fruition? No. Hell, there was a followup injectable version by another researcher that doesn't seem to have gone anywhere; somone bought up her patent and that was over 5 years ago I think--no where close to commercial viability.

Even closed loop insulin pumps aren't really commonplace. That tech has been viable since the mid 90s. Totally embedded? Not so either.

Look at artificial blood. Artificial blood research has had proven, safe in terms of biocompatibility and toxicity, and reduced the spread of disease, and has been around for 15+ years. Is it commonplace? Hell no.

Several years ago, there was a treatment based on immunoglobulins that literally clean out your mouth for months--no cavities or tartar, no direct cells involved, no side effects etc. Did it become commonplace? Nope.

The exception to this rule: If it came out of the military. For whatever reason, most military medical treatments hit the market far sooner, even the civilian market. The pour on the wound blood clotters and large bandages blood clotters are on the free, open market.

Anything else, you'll be waiting. I should probably also note this isn't simply the health care industry; there are other examples (for example, fuel cell materials, such as BASF's buying of a certain product and then sitting on it), it just seems to happen more with health care because of the "concern" of people.

Probably one the reasons I also believe Cuba or some small island is going to become like a fictional Chiba city with black market health care because we're so phrackin slow.

Re:I have bad teeth

[HanClinto]

Wait, _what_? This is a really absurdly ignorant non-sequitor.

Embryonic stem cells have nothing to do with this mouse experiment. These were adult stem cells.

Take your zealotry and anti-religious pogrom elsewhere -- it doesn't even apply here.

Re:I have bad teeth

[foniksonik]

Question. Did you grow up somewhere drinking naturally non-fluoridated water? Did your land have a well rather than a hookup to city / county water supply?

I also have horrid teeth (not as bad as yours sound but still bad enough) and I grew up without fluoride treatments or fluoridated water - just wondering if there is a correlation at least. Hopefully it is also causation and I can worry less about dental bills for my kids as they grow up (even with replacement teeth, keeping the original teeth in good shape is still cheaper).

thanks

Re:I have bad teeth

[foniksonik]

Wow... someone who feels the same way about medical science as I do. Butchers indeed, albeit highly skilled butchers - still I second the opinion that other than more advanced tools and drugs, the treatments for injury and natural decay seem really really outdated compared to the other technologies we employ on a daily basis.

I disagree that this won't be available in our lifetime (we being the 30 somethings, who are having children now). We may be in our 50s before it's a normal procedure but hey that still leaves a good 20 years to appreciate it. Sorry if you're already in your 50s... yeah, it's probably too late for any real quality of life change but it could make life more comfortable (grow new corneas for better vision, grow new cochlear hairs to combat Presbycusis for hearing loss).

Re:I have bad teeth

[PainKilleR-CE]

One of the reasons military applications of medical advancements go to market so quickly is that there is a large body of "volunteers" for human trials who have little or no chance of ever successfully suing the makers of the drugs or devices tested on them (and usually don't even know they're part of some sort of test in the first place).

Re:I have bad teeth

[R2.0]

Look at artificial blood. Artificial blood research has had proven, safe in terms of biocompatibility and toxicity, and reduced the spread of disease, and has been around for 15+ years. Is it commonplace? Hell no.

Ahh, no. First off, there is no such thing currently as artificial blood. You are referring to oxygen therapeutics, which are substances that carry oxygen. These are NOT ready for prime time, see excerpt from the Wikipedia article below. But besides that, blood is enormously complex, and does a great deal more than carry oxygen. When they come up with replacements for platelets and all the stuff in plasma, then you can start talking about "artificial blood".

"Withdrawn oxygen therapeutics

        * Flourasol-DA, by Green Cross. Status: withdrawn in 1994 due to usage complexity, limited clinical benefit and complications
        * HemAssist, by Baxter International. Status: withdrawn in 1998 due to higher than expected mortality
        * Hemolink, by Hemosol, Inc. Status: phase III clinical trials were discontinued in 2003 when cardiac surgery patients receiving the product experienced higher rates of adverse cardiovascular-related events. Some very limited ongoing investigation is still being conducted as of 2007, including the possibility of a future modified Hemolink product.

[edit] Clinical Trials of Blood Substitutes

Since blood transfusions are often most critically needed in trauma situations where obtaining informed consent is either difficult, impossible, or a barrier to providing lifesaving care, the ethics of clinical trials for these products are difficult. In the United States, these trials are performed under a specific exemption from requirements for informed consent [6].

Nominally, the community where blood substitutes will be used in clinical trials is informed, and wristbands or other clear markers are distributed so that a person can "opt out" of the trial. The concept that a person could be involved in experimentation on humans without consent is controversial[7].

In 2008 a review of clinical trail data found that hemoglobin-based blood substitutes may increase the odds of deaths and heart attacks[8][9][10]"

Your post sounds like typical "THEY are keeping the good stuff from us." Does it happen? Sure. But then there's the 100mpg carburetor, running your car on water, and all the other bs conspiracy theories.

Re:I have bad teeth

[mcrbids]

Did you grow up somewhere drinking naturally non-fluoridated water? Did your land have a well rather than a hookup to city / county water supply?

Actually, yes. I grew up on a natural well in the country, and all that. However, there's still clearly a genetic component since my son is prone to cavities, while his older sister (that my wife had from another marriage) is not. Both have always lived on fluoridated water.

Re:I have bad teeth

[LanMan04]

^^^^

What this guy said. Implants are the way to go if you have terrible teeth that are falling apart. Good luck getting insurance to cover it, though.

Re:I have bad teeth

[Anonymous Coward]

They're horrible, and I live in the United States, a culture where teeth are perfect and white or you are nothing. My wife has beautiful teeth, and despite the fact that we have nearly identical brushing and dental care habits, my teeth are horrid, yellow, and falling to pieces, hers are beautiful, white, and basically no cavities.

Sorry - not all teeth are created equal.

So here I am, 30-something, fairly affluent, and having horrid teeth. You think I wouldn't hesitate to spend a few Gs replacing my craptastic old teeth with new teeth with zero chance of rejection? Sure, they will go yellow quickly, just like the last ones did, but that means I'm in my 80s or later before my teeth are in any way unusual. And effectively, that means good teeth for life.

I've been waiting for this kind of treatment. Where do I sign up?

Just move to England. (ducks)

Re:I have bad teeth

[Anonymous Coward]

You may have horrid teeth, but at least you aren't a Commie.

Re:I have bad teeth

[Ungrounded Lightning]

... in the USA ... The embryonic stem cells research was never illegal just denied Government funding in most cases.

Unfortunately, if I understand it correctly, that included the research being done in any facility that had ever received federal funding that ended up contributing to its infrastructure. Which knocks out essentially all the university medical research centers and anywhere else that the results of the research would be published rather than being kept under proprietary wraps in hope of producing a product later.

Because you'd need to make a LOT of breakthroughs to get to a product, kicking it out of public institutions essentially killed any work on embryonic stem cells.

Now if such research could be done in publicly-funded facilities with private funding and the projects were just charged a higher "overhead" rate to reimburse the prior and current infrastructure contributions from the Fed, what you said would be true.

Re:I have bad teeth

[Ungrounded Lightning]

You sign up with the people who aren't religious zealots, believing that life begins at conception and preventing the use of embrionic stem cells. ...

Creating stem cells from other tissues is possible, but adds extra costs.

In fact, using pluripotent adult or infant stem cells (such as cord blood and stem cells extracted from fat), rather than totipotent embryonic stem cells, is what has produced the most promising stem cell based treatment candidates so far. Embryonic cell transplants seem to be prone to getting confused and causing cancers.

The big reason for doing embryonic stem cell research is to gain an understanding of the differentiation signaling mechanisms, not to work toward using such cells for therapy feedstock.

Once the signals are understood it should be possible - and desirable - to perform the actual therapies with cells harvested non-destructively from adults - usually the patient in question - and selected for the proper cell type and/or reprogrammed into an appropriate state of differentiation (and perhaps edited to correct a genetic problem). But it's a lot harder to decode the mechanisms if you can only observe and experiment on cells where they've already run most of their course.

Re:I have bad teeth

[Anonymous Coward]

my teeth are horrid, yellow, and falling to pieces

Do you drink a lot of tea or coffee? Do you smoke? Those things can stain your teeth. Do you grind your teeth when you sleep (or do you find yourself clenching your jaw throughout the day)? Bruxism can weaken teeth and can eventually lead to parts of your teeth breaking off due to all the grinding throughout the night. You can alleviate that problem with a nightguard.

Re:I have bad teeth

[Anonymous Coward]

I had perfect teeth for about the first 22 years of my life. Never a cavity, no yellowing, no problems whatsoever. I moved to japan at age 22 from the US and in a three year time span I had managed to get 5 cavities and other problems. Japanese people in general have bad teeth compared to westerners and I think there may be some correlation with fluoridated water and other minerals lacking in the water supply here. Just a guess though.

Re:I have bad teeth

[bill_mcgonigle]

I also have horrid teeth (not as bad as yours sound but still bad enough) and I grew up without fluoride treatments or fluoridated water - just wondering if there is a correlation at least.

perhaps, but causation seems unlikely. The whole "fluoride builds strong teeth" is a myth. Really, it helps the enamel re-calcify after plaque has digested it. At least that's what a research dentist working on the subject told me.

In my book, better to kill your mouth plaque with Xylitol-based toothpastes than to try to repair the damage after rot.

Maybe they could grow kidneys for my friend's baby

[MichaelCrawford]

A friend of mine had a baby girl, unaware until late in her pregnancy that she and the father were both carriers for the recessive form of polycystic kidney disease. Babies with this condition rarely survive gestation, and almost all of those that are born alive die within a month of birth.

Her baby's kidneys were both removed when she was less than a week old. My friend has been a hero to her child, lavishing her not just with the usual motherly love, but also expert medical care that she learned from the doctors and nurses. As a result her baby has survived over a year now.

When her daughter gets big enough to accept it, my friend will donate one of her own kidneys.

This sort of research holds out hope that more such babies will have a chance at survival.

Or...

[Anonymous Coward]

They could give teeth to the old?
The organ thing is awesome,and needs funding and lots of work, but why not trickle down what we can already do? Sell making new teeth in order to fund organ research.

what abt side effects

[IAmKidding]

they shd watch that mouse for next 1 year and see if it developes something else due to this new stuff they did to him.

on the other note - people start advertising the growing different kinds teeth...colored..dracula-like..different shapes

Re:what abt side effects

[Anonymous Coward]

TOOTH CANCER?!

Human Brain?

[youn]

I hope it can be used to grow brains... some people are definitely operating without them :)

how'd you know?

[commodoresloat]

did you see the laser beam on his head?

When I got a tooth cap I asked the tech who made..

[MichaelCrawford]

... it if he ever tried making vampire fangs, not like the plastic ones but made of stainless steel and porcelain like my cap. And he said yes he did, he once made himself a set to wear to a Halloween party.

(I have a cap because someone through a spoon at me once. :-()

just creating more work for

[Anonymous Coward]

prison rapists and dentists, but only dentists get rich

Fantastic news...

[damburger]

I wonder if this treatment will be available through NHS dentists once it is perfected.

ROFLMFAO I crack myself up sometimes.

Re:Fantastic news...

[aurispector]

Good point. This, like dental implants, is destined to be a high end treatment for the wealthy. Po' folks will have to do with dentures.

Repeated injuries can cause cancer

[MichaelCrawford]

My ex was a biologist, and told me that the way the healing of wounds is implemented is that cells multiply when there aren't other cells next to them. If there is a hole, then the cells will divide to fill in the gap, with the signal to stop occuring when the dividing cells finally close up the hole. The problem is that that signal to stop gets screwed up somehow sometimes - either it's not produced, or its ignored. There is only a small probability of this happening, but if you are repeatedly wounded, then the probability increases. Some people have a habit of biting the insides of their cheeks. I understand that doing so can cause cancers where you bite.

Re:Repeated injuries can cause cancer

[CrashandDie]

No. The probability is still the same, but the number of times it is applied increases.

Re:Repeated injuries can cause cancer

[kthejoker]

*reads this as he massages the inside of his cheek that he bit for the fifth time this year*

Well shit.

Re:Repeated injuries can cause cancer

[nametaken]

Isn't that condition what we call cancer?

Re:Repeated injuries can cause cancer

[nametaken]

Uhg, fail. I just read your last sentence... disregard. ;)

Tags

[consonant]

smokeemifyagotem

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

Toughest tag to parse, EVAR!

Re:Tags

[fbjon]

Actually, that's the name of the extraterrestrial doctor we got this technology from: Yagotem Smok'eemif.

Re:Tags

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

I was like, Smoke emify a gotem ... WTF, even Google doesn't help me!

this mouse with human teeth

[nimbius]

has just replaced the whale in my nightmares.

Re:this mouse with human teeth

[youn]

I'll take a mouse bite over a whale bite anyday... especially if i's a computer mouse :)

Re:this mouse with human teeth

[noname444]

Not quite yet. The mouse actually grew back a new mouse tooth, not a human one. So you're stuck with the whale for now.

Re:this mouse with human teeth

[camperdave]

But mouse teeth (like the teeth of all rodents) grow continuously anyways. Have they really accomplished anything?

Re:this mouse with human teeth

[thearkitex]

If you're having nightmares about whales, you REALLY need to stop using twitter...

Screw growing new organs ...

[MartinSchou]

Well, not entirely, but seriously - they've come up with a way to grow new teeth for mammals.

Personally, I would love it if I could go to the dentist and have him replace some of my bad teeth with new ones. One or two at a time would be fine.

Instead of getting fake teeth or fillings when you've abused your teeth to the point where the enamel on the outside of the tooth has worn away, exposing the dentine ... if I could get those replaced? I'd almost be willing to kill for that.

Sure, it'd take time to regrow a new tooth, but I could live with that.

So yeah, screw growing new organs - get me some new teeth!

Re:Screw growing new organs ...

[camperdave]

Instead of getting fake teeth or fillings when you've abused your teeth to the point where the enamel on the outside of the tooth has worn away, exposing the dentine ... if I could get those replaced?

My dentist has all sorts of new tech in his office. Digital X-ray, a 3D rapid prototyping machine for making crowns, and a digital camera wand for taking pictures of the teeth. He showed me my tooth after I had lost a filling. It was three quarters gone. Lost enamel indeed. Pfft! Child's play.

Re:Screw growing new organs ...

[Anonymous Coward]

People who need teeth often do not have funds for Dentists, let alone the technology you describe.

Oh, it is the Dentist(s) who gets to decide who gets charitable service, and at what costs, unless the Government steps in.

I trust the Government more than Dentists in this case.

Re:Screw growing new organs ...

[VeNoM0619]

So yeah, screw growing new organs - get me some new teeth!

Cause teeth aren't vital, some people actually need organs to survive, teeth are more "cosmetic" (you can survive without them).

if I could get those replaced? I'd almost be willing to kill for that

Technically you would already be, if you got teeth while someone missed out on a vital new organ.

On behalf of the "special" people ;)

[aussie_a]

Mental retardation is a disease most people are born with or are inflicted with through some traumatising accident. You should not make fun of such people! They are human beings who are truly special.

Re:When I got a tooth cap I asked the tech who mad

[aurispector]

Every dentist does this at least once.

Perhaps not as interesting but

[Bruha]

I was always dreading having my wisdom teeth taken out.

While in the Army I had a cracked molar that had to be removed and the dentist says, "Look at the good side, you were born without wisdom teeth".

Re:Perhaps not as interesting but

[cayenne8]

"I was always dreading having my wisdom teeth taken out."

Its not THAT bad...I had mine out when I was like 16 or so I think. Best time I ever had getting them out. My dentist didn't believe in pain, he had the gas on me on HIGH for awhile...shots numbed everything, he'd put the headphones on you, and let you pick out what you wanted to listen to, I put on Dark Side of the Moon, and I think Zeppelin's Physical Graffitti (hell, maybe even one of the old Klaatu albums or Yes)...I was high as a kite, and it was quite pleasant....

Till that afternoon, when everything wore off, and I got dry sockets. Well, lots of codeine later and I made it through...

Anyway, I never grew up in fear of the dentist...a bit of gas and good to go. I've NEVER understood people that won't take the gas, or would even think of going to a dentist that didn't offer gas (that's one of my criteria for going to one). I mean, if you're gonna have to have something done...have a little fun with it.

Re:Perhaps not as interesting but

[icebrain]

Anyway, I never grew up in fear of the dentist...a bit of gas and good to go. I've NEVER understood people that won't take the gas, or would even think of going to a dentist that didn't offer gas (that's one of my criteria for going to one). I mean, if you're gonna have to have something done...have a little fun with it.

Most dental work I've had (dozens of fillings, two root canals, and an apicoectomy) was done with local anesthetic only (novocane/lidocane). The injections don't feel that good, especially in the roof of the mouth, but it's nice to understand what's going on--especially if your dentist is nice enough to explain what's going on, and gives you a mirror or puts it on the TV so you can see, too.

Twice I was put under general anesthesia (put to sleep) for oral surgeries. The first time, they put me on gas before putting in the IV. I positively hated the gas feeling. It felt like my hand was dropping through my torso, and made me very queasy. No fun at all.

The second time, they tried to gas me, and I said "screw that, just stick me."
"No, just relax and breathe, it'll help relax you before the IV."
"Look, lady, I give blood every eight weeks. I watch the needle go in, and it doesn't bother me at all. I'm not going to breathe that gas because it makes me sick, so just stick the damn needle in already and get it over with."
"But, sir..."
"JUST STICK ME!!"

So yeah. Either leave me fully conscious and kill the pain, or knock me out completely. If I'm going to get only halfway there, alcohol tastes a lot better than nitrous.

Heck, I've even passed on the local anesthetic for the really minor stuff (tiny fillings). Rubberlips suck too.

Re:Perhaps not as interesting but

[Eivind Eklund]

"I was always dreading having my wisdom teeth taken out."

Its not THAT bad...I had mine out when I was like 16 or so I think.

My dentist told me the wisdom teeth fasten as you get older, and that it's a good idea to take them out as early as possible if you're going to remove them. (I've had several dentists - they also seem to have quite different opinions about the utility of wisdom teeth, with one having the opinion "Take 'em out" and the other having the opinion "You never know when you're going to need a tooth...")

Re:Perhaps not as interesting but

[cayenne8]

"So yeah. Either leave me fully conscious and kill the pain, or knock me out completely. If I'm going to get only halfway there, alcohol tastes a lot better than nitrous."

Sorry to hear you didn't like it....do you like getting 'buzzed' at all on booze or anything else? Just curious if you just prefer to be totally sober in all facets of life?

Hehehe...I've gotten fairly smashed before a dental appt. too....happy hour with margaritas before going it...between that and the gas...they could have pulled my whole head off and I'd just have laughed. The headphones and music thing, tho...is what made it nice. He now also has a tv suspended above your head if you like to watch...

Re:Perhaps not as interesting but

[icebrain]

Sorry to hear you didn't like it....do you like getting 'buzzed' at all on booze or anything else? Just curious if you just prefer to be totally sober in all facets of life?

Oh, I like a mild to moderate alcohol buzz... but there's a reason I don't drink to the point that I can barely stand up, and it's not just because of the hangovers. Nitrous was like that. I don't like the freaky feeling of being still awake but knowing the rational part of my brain is slipping away. It's like sleep paralysis--you're half-conscious, maybe still dreaming a bit, but you can't do anything about it. (Incidentally, sleep paralysis is believed to be the real cause of a lot of alien abduction stories)

Re:Perhaps not as interesting but

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to hear you didn't like it....do you like getting 'buzzed' at all on booze or anything else? Just curious if you just prefer to be totally sober in all facets of life?

Oh, I like a mild to moderate alcohol buzz... but there's a reason I don't drink to the point that I can barely stand up, and it's not just because of the hangovers. Nitrous was like that. I don't like the freaky feeling of being still awake but knowing the rational part of my brain is slipping away. It's like sleep paralysis--you're half-conscious, maybe still dreaming a bit, but you can't do anything about it. (Incidentally, sleep paralysis is believed to be the real cause of a lot of alien abduction stories)

I am not a doctor, nor am I a pharmacologist. I just find this stuff to be fascinating. Nitrous oxide is a disassociative anesthetic, which places it in the same category of drugs as ketamine and dextromethorphan. High doses of a disassociative anesthetic can actually produce what are called out-of-body experiences, and this seems particularly true for ketamine. The point is that none of this is anything like the way alcohol or most recreational drugs would affect you. It's generally a much more disconcerting and downright strange feeling, compared to the sense of well-being and ease that alcohol or marijuana tend to give you.

I have personally experienced sleep paralysis and I can easily understand why most people would be freaked out by it. It does seem to come with a strong sense that "an unseen someone or something else" is in the room with you and I assure you, that feeling is strong whether the person experiencing it thinks it's rational or not. I've learned that sleep paralysis can be resisted and it can be "broken out of" and this is particularly easy when you don't let it scare you or freak you out.

Posting AC because in this climate of drug hysteria and desire to blame our problems on inanimate objects, I am not eager to publically admit that I am interested in drugs, use drugs, or find mind/body/chemical relationships to be utterly fascinating objects of study that have deepened my appreciation of the mystery of consciousness.

Can they grow a blue tooth?

[youn]

Internet enabled tooth... heck, it's only a stretch if they have vision accessories in the tongue

Sayyyyy.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheeeeese!!

Why do mice get all the extra parts?

[Centurix]

Honestly. Teeth, ears - Science is trying to genetically grow Professor Frink. In mouse form. GLAYVEN!

Maus Teef

[Satyr Rake]

when someone grows a fully functional bio-engineered mouse inside a tooth... THEN I'll be impressed. after that ear on the mouse's back thing... my amazement meter got all blown out.

And Congress and Celebrities Get It First

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . while government-appointed bureaucrats decides which of us proles live and which of us die.

Re:And Congress and Celebrities Get It First

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than the alternative - your profit-driven Doctor or Dentist and their cohorts, where you already die because of lack of funds.

Frankensteins Monster

[johnsie]

I'm just waiting for humanity to wipe itself out with one of its own fucked up 'creations'.

Errm, he was referring to...

[gfolkert]

People Like Joe Biden, Al Gore, GWB, Amy Winehouse... etc.

Genetic instructions, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The researchers at the Tokyo University of Science created a set of cells that contained genetic instructions to build a tooth, and then implanted this 'tooth germ' into the mouse's empty tooth socket."

Well, no chance in hell for me then. I refuse to RTFM for any sort of petty instructions.

It's all about the permissions.

[svtdragon]

login as: geneticist
password:
geneticist@bioresearch:~$> cd /dna/kidney/
geneticist@bioresearch:/dna/kidney$> make
Error: permission denied.
geneticist@bioresearch:/dna/kidney$> su god
password:
god@bioresearch:/dna/kidney$> make
god@bioresearch:/dna/kidney$> ./configure
god@bioresearch:/dna/kidney$> su surgeon
surgeon@bioresearch:/dna/kidney$> sudo make install

Re:It's all about the permissions.

[svtdragon]

Fail. Missed password prompt. Oh well, that's what I get for a first-time effort at /. humor.

Re:It's all about the permissions.

[smidget2k4]

Also why would you configure AFTER the make? Something tells me we just created a kidney that will crash upon use.

Re:It's all about the permissions.

[Anonymous Coward]

make before ./configure ? Also, god probably had NOPASSWD set. He has a god complex or something.

Re:It's all about the permissions.

[shaitand]

god always makes before configure. How else would you explain teenagers?

Choices

[svtdragon]

A dead body grows no cancer: Would you rather have that new heart now, and accept the risk of cancer later, or... well, there really is no choice here. Even if after it's studied the risk of cancer is 100% within 5 years, well, would you take those extra 5 years?

There will be plenty of volunteers for those studies.

when can I have some ?

[rs232]

Jaws

--

Citibank Hack Blamed for Alleged ATM Crime Spree"

Hackers breach Heartland Payment credit card system

No Oblig Overlord Yet?

[zepo1a]

I just gotta...
I, for one, welcome our Bioengineered, Chomping Teeth of Death Mouse Overlords!

Ditto

[mark-t]

I kinda felt the same way after reading the summary...while there are a handful of organs that humans could do without while they wait for a brand new one to grow in an empty space inside their body, by far the most useful applications for regrowing organs are those for which this would simply be impossible to do in anybody who has already left the womb: heart, liver, stomach, brain, etc. So call me a bit of a cynic, but I'm really not seeing as much hype as what is suggested by the submitter.

Of course, allowing humans to regrow teeth is pretty cool all by itself... but generalizing it to arbitrary organs really doesn't fit.

well water

[postermmxvicom]

My sis and my best friend have brown splotchy teeth. Where I am from it is known to be the well water. We moved to the country when I was 5, so it didn't get me. But, it gets you if you drink it young.

btw, she got caps or veneers or something. They look nice.

If you are willing to drop G's....

[postermmxvicom]

Why not get caps or veneers or something. My sis did this because she had messed up teeth. It is not that expensive, but it's not cheap either. Why wait until you can grow new teeth when you could have some cosmetic dentistry now?

[O/T] Re:Strange Leap

[Emb3rz]

Agreed! Free will, with which we have been endowed (against which some will argue) is a wonderful thing that demonstrates whether or not we are willing to live according to standards other than those that we ourselves have set. It also moves us to recognize that the same applies to others - their free will is their own with which to do as they please.

VC

[PleaseFearMe]

Most syllables start with consonants, so your brain automatically tries to separate the words by consonants. Problem is that the 'em', 'if', and 'em' all start with vowels.

Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hockey players rejoice!

Totally CREEPY

[Anonymous Coward]

CREEPY

Just like the mouse that grew a human ear: http://loscuatroojos.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ear-mouse.jpg

But if they could grow a 10" penis for transplant, maybe not so bad . . .

LOL! The Captcha word is "deform"!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

interesting, but not sure what it's good for

[cstacy]

Fully Functional Bioengineered Tooth Grown In a Mouse

Doesn't this hurt your hand?
 

Back in elementary school ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Or ... They could give teeth to the old?

Back in elementary school I was quite impressed by scientific progress and science fiction (it was the late "golden age" of sf.) I was expecting that, by the time my adult teeth needed repair, they'd be able to grow and implant, or stimulate the growth of, new ones to replace them.

I'm 62 now. Maybe I'll still be alive when they finally get around to it. (Like maybe if the FDA is ever overthrown.) B-(

Just to expand on this

[NotSoHeavyD3]

The problem isn't blood cancer it's graft versus host disease like this poster is talking about. Here's the link to the wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_marrow_transplant To put it bluntly a bone marrow transplant(which what that other guy was talking about) is one of the most dangerous medical procedure you can go through with a high probability of death as a side effect. (IE between 10-20 percent. None of that 1 in 10000 crap stuff. We're talking 1 in 10 or 1 in 5 die from the treatment in a couple of weeks from the treatment.)

If Firmly Extended...

[Anonymous Coward]

If this technology was firmly extended, it could certainly make the Viagra business model go soft.

Nano machines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Queue nano machines which can seed failing parts of the body with custom engineered stem cells on the spot

The Island

[vecctor]

The movie "The Island" has that plot.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201/

They threw in a genetic memory subplot too, for good measure :-P