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."

Re:Start small?

[johncadengo]

I think not.

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

Human Brain?

[youn]

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

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.

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: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: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: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 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 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.