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Scientists Grow Replacement Human Teeth In Mouse Kidneys
sciencehabit writes "When an adult loses a tooth, there's no hope of growing a new one—unless you've got a mouse kidney handy. In a new study, researchers injected human gum tissue extracted during oral surgery into the molars of fetal mice. After giving the cells a week to get used to each other, the scientists implanted the chimeric concoction into the protective tissue surrounding the kidneys of living mice. There, 20% of the cells developed into objects recognizable as teeth, complete with the root structures missing from artificial tooth implants. The next step is to transplant these so-called 'bio-teeth' back into human mouths and see if they grow into something that we can chew on—or rather, with."
No need to worry about how gross that sounds, they wash them before putting them in, using a special sterilizing soap grown from a rat's testicles.
As tempting as putting something in my mouth grown from a mouse's kidney sounds, I'll just take a crown or some bridgework, thanks.
It sounds good but the instruction was to grow human kidneys in rats teeth. It was a real Do'h moment when the researcher reread his brief!
My guess is that it's a little easier to euthanize a mouse when something goes horribly, horribly wrong.
I don't know...maybe it's just me, but teeth growing out of my kidney sounds like something gone horribly, horribly wrong...