Using Wisdom Teeth To Make Stem Cells

Posted by samzenpus on Saturday September 11, 2010 @04:49AM from the spare-parts dept.

An anonymous reader writes "For most people, wisdom teeth are not much more than an annoyance that eventually needs to be removed. However, a new study appearing in the September 17 Journal of Biological Chemistry shows that wisdom teeth contain a valuable reservoir of tissue for the creation of stem cells; thus, everyone might be carrying around his or her own personal stem-cell repository should he or she ever need some. Groundbreaking research back in 2006 revealed that inducing the activity of four genes in adult cells could 'reprogram' them back into a stem-cell-like state; biologically, these induced-pluripotent stem cells are virtually identical to embryonic stem cells, opening up a new potential avenue for stem-cell therapy whereby patients could be treated with their own stem cells."

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Great! by schmidt349 · 2010-09-11 04:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

Could you maybe have told me this _before_ I had them yanked?
In a related news... by Katatsumuri · 2010-09-11 08:00 · Score: 5, Informative

Japanese scientists successfully made stem cells from wisdom teeth back in 2008.
They used wisdom teeth that had been frozen for three years after being removed from a 10-year-old girl.