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

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/

when can I have some ?

[rs232]

Jaws

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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