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."

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: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 [answers.com] little blurb provides what I think is a convincing, if hardly exhaustive, argument that teeth are organs.

Re:Human Pancreas?

[Cyberax]

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

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 [innovations-report.com] 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: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:Old News?

[supernova_hq]

Found It [lmgtfy.com]

Re:Start small?

[Hitman_Frost]

She builds her castle out of them.

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 [wikipedia.org].

Tags

[consonant]

smokeemifyagotem

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

Toughest tag to parse, EVAR!

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.

[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.

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