Growing Teeth with Stem Cell Technology 340
davidoff404 writes "Lost a tooth lately? Well, a natural cure may be at hand. The BBC is reporting on a grant awarded to researchers at King's College, London, which they say will allow them to develop a technique for growing natural replacement teeth. Using recently developed techniques, stem cells can be programmed to develop into teeth, and then inserted into the gap in a patient's jaw. According to the BBC, the research has already been successfully performed on mice, and clinical trials on humans should begin within two years."
I bet they are running this operation at a loss (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I bet they are running this operation at a loss (Score:3, Interesting)
Stupid scientists.
Re:I bet they are running this operation at a loss (Score:5, Funny)
Research on Growing Teeth (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Research on Growing Teeth (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know how it is in the UK, but it can't be any worse than Arkansas teeth [billybobteeth.com]!
Re:Research on Growing Teeth (Score:5, Funny)
Your teeth are only fine 'cause your chocolate is inedible.
Re:Research on Growing Teeth (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Research on Growing Teeth (Score:5, Interesting)
You move to a new town and there are only two dentists - one with really good teeth and one with really bad teeth. Which one do you choose to be your dentist?
Brownie points (and probably Karma too) to whoever gives the explanation along with their answer.
Re:Research on Growing Teeth (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, come on, this is easy. You choose the one with the bad teeth, because the other one is obviously French.
Re:Research on Growing Teeth (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Research on Growing Teeth (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Research on Growing Teeth (Score:5, Informative)
Your riddle was originally intended as a question of barbers, one with terrible hair and one with well-styled hair. It does not translate as well to dentistry, as dental hygene requires personal effort in addition to regular dentist visits. True, hairstyles also require some personal effort, but at least most people don't cut their own hair, so a barber with badly shorn hair would indicate that his barber is a lousy cut.
Re:Research on Growing Teeth (Score:5, Funny)
Wonderful! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wonderful! (Score:3, Funny)
target market? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:target market? (Score:5, Funny)
New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:3, Informative)
teeth aren't made of the same stuff as hair and nails. teeth are bones, and all bones have blood vessels and nerves in them... unless you want flexible teeth of course...
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:4, Informative)
A more signficant issue is that a dead tooth (ie, post root canal) tends to become brittle over time, and much more likely to suddenly break when stressed.
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:4, Informative)
Does dentin require any nutrition? That is a bit of a point of debate still. When a root canal is done, the pulp tissue is removed, and the tooth is essentially dead. Normally, the pressure from inside the pulp causes slow fluid flow through those tubules to the outside. I'm not sure if anybody has determined exactly what that does (perhaps some sort of defensive flushing mechanism has been speculated). I don't know of any studies that have been done about teeth with root canal treatment (and hence lacking this fluid flow) being more vulnerable to anything either.
Teeth which have had root canals do dry out though, and thus the dentin does become slightly more brittle (and hence prone to fracture). More so, the access opening that has to be made to do the root canal weakens the tooth structurally (think of a cylinder with closed ends, and then you put a hole through one end into the hollow center)... hence again root canal teeth being more fragile. And as mentioned, the root canal is often done because of prexisting factors such as large amount of decay or trauma. Therefore, a crown is often highly recommended to reinforce what is left. Much better than having the tooth fracture straight down the root (which I have seen quite often with uncrowned root canaled teeth) and then having to be pulled because you can't fix it.
As to the tooth turning black, that often is a result of the oxidation of the materials that are used to seal the canal up after root canal treatment is performed.
And this technique of growing a new tooth? I hope people are very patient, since the process to grow a new tooth will probably take years (at least, that's how long it takes for you body to form one when you are young).
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:3, Interesting)
I would think flouridated water had at least something to do with that...
in addition to genetics and floride... (Score:3, Informative)
start with diet: you need calcium. and not a lot of processed sugar.
good habits: brushing regularly. flossing. and not eating all the time (without brushing afterward).
there are medicines that you can take while you are growing up that will impact the development of your teeth.
diet and medicines that your mother was into before you were born.
there's a lot that goes into healthy teeth and some of this was really quite recent.
eric
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd consider this step just the first phase though. What they need to figure out is how to inject a current root with cells that turn a tooth into a "baby" tooth that loosens and falls out on its own, and then is replaced. Sort of like the "Shark Model," only different.
KFG
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:3, Interesting)
To quote from the site:
You might think that a tooth's nerve tissue is vitally important to a tooth's health and function, but in reality it's not. A tooth's nerve tissue plays an important role in the growth and development of the tooth, but once the tooth has erupted through the gums and has finished maturing the nerve's only function is sensory (it provides the tooth with the ab
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is exactly what my dentist told me too. However, the problem is with this line:
If a tooth's nerve tissue is present and healthy, wonderful.
No, not wonderful. If I could, I'd have all the nerves removed from my teeth. All they do is hurt every time I eat something cold. Having slightly receding gums makes it much worse than for normal people. I've had one root canal, and that tooth which used to hurt a lot when I ate ice cream now doesn't feel anything at all. Now if I could only have that done easily for the other teeth.
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a class in comparative vertebrate morphology last term, and we talked about this very issue. Highly innnervated teeth is a mammalian trait. Other vertebrates (reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, etc.) don't have a lot of nerves in their teeth. As you probably know, mammals have only two sets of teeth: the milk (or "baby") teeth and the adult teeth. The milk teeth fall out and are replaced during childhood/adolscence. Other vertebrates typically grow replacement teeth throughout their lives.
Why is this the case? Mammals process their food with their teeth much more than other vertebrates do. This allows us to eat more difficult things like tough plant parts and insects with hard exoskeletons that are unavailable as a food source to other vertebrates. This is one of the keys to mammalian success.
Mastication requires precise occlusion of the upper and lower teeth. Mammalian teeth have highly specialized forms for grinding, shearing, tearing, etc., and different regions of the jaw have different shapes of teeth. This precise occlusion is hard to maintain if teeth are constantly being lost and regrown, so mammals compromised: In exchange for really excellent, highly specialized teeth that allow them to exploit otherwise unavailable food resources, they only have two sets of teeth for their entire lives.
Here's a geek analogy: you have a certain amount of money you can spend on a new computer. Do you spend the big bucks and get a really great piece of hardware (like a G5 PowerMac or something) or do you buy rubbish and get two of them? Mammals decided to spend the big bucks and buy quality. Judging by the success of mammals, I'd say they made a good decision.
Having such awesome, precious teeth, mammals must protect them. The muscles of the jaw are easily strong enough to crush your teeth into powder. Having lots of nerves in teeth is one way that mammals prevent their teeth from premature destruction.
So how did mammals get away with only having two sets of teeth? Two ideas: 1) selection is weaker on older organisms that have already reproduced. Problems related to teeth wearing out are generally found among older individuals. 2) Primitive mammals were typically small (like the size of most rodents). Body size is positively correlated with lifespan in mammals, so the early mammals probably idn't live to be very old. Perhaps they didn't live long enough to wear out their teeth. By the time larger mammals evolved the dentition system was sort of set in stone, and they had to make do in other ways (and there are some amazing adaptations found among mammals for preserving their adult teeth as long as possible).
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:3, Informative)
I wondered whether I should elaborate, but the original post was getting a bit long. I guess brushing would be considered an adaptaion, but not in the strict evolutioanry sense (yes, I realize you were joking :).
I was thinking of rodents. Beavers are a good example. Their front incisors have indeterminate growth because they are not rooted. They just keep growing out of their gums for their whole lives, while the beavers keep wearing them down by chewing on wood all of the time. This is a common strat
Re:New real teeth? No thanks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. An individual who has no teeth will be at a serious disadvantage to even survive, let alone reproduce, especially if they have teeth that are specialized for a particular diet (like eating tough grass or crushing mollusk shells or something). In other words, it impacts the potential to have offspring. If the tooth loss has a genetic basis, then any offspring that the toothless individual does manage to have will be similarly disadvantaged when they reach reproductive age.. However, there would be comparatively little selection on a gene that caused all of their teeth to fall out the minute they finished reproducing.
This is pretty unique to humans in western cultures who eat too much refined sugar. Tooth decay like modern humans get is vanishingly rare in nature.
"Sort of set in stone" refers to phylogenetic inertia. Certain things just don't happen very often in evolution because of the difficulty of redesigning an organism. Why do ostriches have wings? Why do humans have an (apparently) nonfunctional vermiform appendix? Why do vertebrates have two sets of limbs instead of three sets? Why am I feeding a troll?
Maybe you should take a few biology courses yourself, mate.
Note to all /. readers... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Note to all /. readers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Dentist: No just the ones you want to keep.
Seriously, even if this works, nothing is 100% and I'm sure they're will be some screw ups, i.e. gum infections, roots not fitting, jaw bone to destroyed to set new teeth, etc.
Having just had a root canal done recently, I can tell you, take care of your teeth cuz when things go wrong, it hurrrttts!
My eight year old self would be pleased (Score:5, Funny)
Take that, Mother, with all your dire predictions about my teeth rotting out.
Re:My eight year old self would be pleased (Score:2)
Re:My eight year old self would be pleased (Score:4, Insightful)
Prevention is better than a cure any day.
Re:My eight year old self would be pleased (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly right. Jokes about no longer flossing aside, if you lose your gums to gum disease, it won't matter how many shiny new teeth you can grow. Without gums they'll be worse than useless, they'll be a liability, complete with nerves to exact an excruciating lesson as to why.
That having been said, its an excellent addition to our medical/dental toolkit, and one I welcome. Stupid people will use it as an excuse to let their hygene go to hell
Smashing, baby (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait, this research was done in the UK.
Make that Austin Powers.
John.
Niven (Score:3, Interesting)
Old men with baby teeth, that just freaks me out.
It would be the Brits to start doing this though.
Yesh! (Score:2, Funny)
Shinsherely,
Cohen the Barbarian
Reshipient of Oldesht Living Barbarian Award
Hack the tooth! (Score:4, Funny)
of all the things (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh no, terrible! This will destroy IT! (Score:2)
Consider the disaster for one of the few growth industries in IT!
What shams will the spam industry sell if we can start growing things medically?!
Quit the statistics courses, guys... there is no future in getting around the Bayesian analysis, anymore... :-(
Re:of all the things (Score:2)
I can see it now (Score:3, Funny)
"All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.."
Keep it up, Europe (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:3, Insightful)
Step back, oh, sixty-seventy years.
"Too bad the UK won't allow this stunning new Eugenics research, because it clashes with their religious ideals. I mean, it's not like they're PEOPLE or anything."
Stopping research because of religiously-based morals has a long and time-honored tradition, that didn't start with Bush and won't go away when he leaves office.
That said, Bush is just fine
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:3, Insightful)
Bush banned research on stem cells harvested from abortions. Abortions are going to happen reguardless, harvesting stem cells at least allows the death of the unborn child (if you buy into that) to serve to save lives and better humanity.
If Bush wanted to prevent abortions from happening to get stem cells he should have put in place laws restricting the availability of stem cell
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
Almost irrelevant? (Score:4, Insightful)
When was it ever used as such? Abortions get chucked in biohazard bags and incinerated like any other sort of medical waste.
You're living in a fantasy world if you think that Superhero Bush stopped legions of money-grubbing women who were clamoring to make a quick buck off of their abortions.
This is a non-issue if you take the time to think about it. Trash... or valuable medical research. Trash... or valuable medical research. Tough call there.
--grendel drago
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:3, Informative)
No, this procedure is performed using adult stem cells. Bush is only opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells in research.
Was the parent post serious, or have I been trolled?
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not saying most people are in favor of embryonic stem cell research, I just haven't seen any public polls on it to show me otherwise.
Re:Keep it up, Europe (Score:3, Insightful)
Correction. It is supported by the vocal population. I bet 90 % of the people in this country could care less. They are too worried trying to find jobs and keep paying the rent.
no mice yet? (Score:3, Insightful)
submission says: According to the BBC, the research has already been successfully performed on mice, and clinical trials on humans should begin within two years.
However the story says: The company Odontis, set up by the college, hopes to develop its research for tests on humans within two years after successful research on mice.
It doesn't sound like they've actually grown MiceTeeth(tm) yet, unless I'm reading that terribly wrong.
Re:no mice yet? (Score:4, Informative)
It also answers the first question that came to my mind -- how does a molar or incisor get specified? Apparently, the different teeth form in the same dish and are then identified and sorted before transplantation. And the stem cells come from the patient, not from fetuses, BTW.
This could be frightning (Score:5, Funny)
Reality meets your fears (Score:4, Informative)
What kind of stem cells... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What kind of stem cells... (Score:5, Informative)
Who needs a grant? Go toothfairy! (Score:5, Funny)
New Product Coming Soon! (Score:2, Funny)
This is going to be huge (Score:5, Insightful)
but the teeth market won't be the market that fuels this research. No, the market is the hair loss market. the same stem cell technology is being used to replace teeth can replace hair follicles.
in traditional hair restoration, hair is transplanted from point A on the bottom of the scalp, where the follicles for some reason don't fall out like they do on the crown. this works, but the hair has to be spread thin, because there's only X amount you can take, and it means there's going to be missing hair from the bottom.
what the cloned hair would do is allow an arbitrary thickness and density of placement, not limited by the donors thickness and supply at the base, since you can take a small amount from the base, clone them to the amount you want, and make a better graft.
i can't wait, being 24 and nearly bald. fight genetics with science.
Re:This is going to be huge (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily. According to the Guardian piece the stem cells are taken from the patient themselves, but it doesn't say where the stem cells originate. I'm certainly not an expert in the field, but there was a really good episode of the PBS show Innovations on stem cell research recently. It talked about spinal cord repair using nerve stem cells from the nose (yes, you have nerve stem cells in your nose. No, I had no idea either.) and heart muscle repair (post heart attack) using bone marrow stem cells.
Anyway, the deal is that not all stem cells are the same. There are differentiated ones and undifferentiated ones. The differentiated ones cannot be used to grow "any" other kind of cell -- at least, not that we've figured out yet. They have already specialized toward a kind of cell (for instance, nerve cells) and cannot grow other kinds of cells (like blood cells or muscle cells). AFAIK, most of the stem cells we still have after birth are these kind.
The undifferentiated stem cells are pretty much the holy grail. They can (in theory) be coaxed toward creating any kind of cell you want -- blood, muscle, nerve, tooth, hair, etc. Of course, there's the issue of getting them. I think some of the stem cells in the bone marrow are undifferentiated. I'm not aware of any others elsewhere in the body. But, heck, we weren't even aware of stem cells a few decades ago and I'm certainly not a medical researcher, so I could be dead wrong here.
All of that said -- whether or not this could be used for your balding head basically comes down to two things -- 1) are they using undifferentiated cells, 2) can we figure out and replicate the process that causes such stem cells to produce hair cells.
And I very much disagree that the hair replacement market will be a primary funding source -- it's going to be too expensive for some time to come. Surgery, even outpatient surgery, is usually not part of hair replacement, and there's no way to get to stem cells without at least some surgery.
I suspect most of it will come from cardiovascular and cancer research. Stem cell research is already looking extremely positive for heart attack treatment. So far every study done has given back 100% positive results. That's unheard of. And the treatment is relatively cheap to boot.
The cancer research comes in an opposite direction. Do you know what leukemia is? Essentially the stem cells in your bone marrow going haywire. We know that stem cells can regenerate other cells, but we really don't understand how, or why they occasionally malfunction. Which is a danger with using stem cell treatments, at least in theory. But if we can figure out how stem cells actually work then we can make some major steps toward fighting cancer.
Oh, and finally, none of this research is being done with fetal stem cells. It's all being done with the stem cells from the patient themselves. Which is a huge plus as far as rejection goes -- there simply won't be any. The only real advantage of fetal stem cell research is that there's a ton of undifferentiated stem cells in an embryo.
Customers (Score:3, Funny)
Super Mice? (Score:5, Funny)
With all these advancements we keep performing on mice (mice with human breasts and gigantic ears. Mice that can control things with their mind and are cancer proof...Mice that produce sperm for monkeys,mice that glow in the dark, etc...), it's only a matter of time before we build a renegade breed of super-supergenius mice who become our leaders and take over the world.
Re:Super Mice? (Score:2, Offtopic)
I, for one, can't wait for our new super-supergenius mice overlords.
OK I feel dirty and shamed, I have to go shower.
This will never become legal in the US... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This will never become legal in the US... (Score:2)
So the question here is (Score:4, Funny)
LONDON, ENGLAND... A HUGE, WHITE MASS LOOMS OVER THE BUILDINGS ON THE HORIZON
WOMAN, FRIGHTENED AND DRAWING BACK: My God... what is it??
MAN, STANDING BACK DRAMATICALLY: It is... The Tooth.
Re:So the question here is (Score:3, Informative)
Via the excact same mechanism they do in every human being already, maybe?
Oh, and human tissue that grows out of control doesn't become huge and monstrous. It becomes cancer, and kills its own flesh & blood.
Wonderful! (Score:2, Funny)
Connecting the Nerves (Score:5, Interesting)
Depending on how it's handled, it could possibly be applied to a number of other useful medical advances, such as helping repair nerve damage, prosthetic limbs, and spinal cord injuries.
Aren't stem cells wonderful things?
Re:Connecting the Nerves (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Connecting the Nerves (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm by no means an expert in the field, but I'd suspect the newly implanted tooth would be made to secrete nerve growth factors that would cause the appropriate nerves in the gums to grow and attach themselves to the tooth.
Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)
mmmm...fang implants (Score:2, Insightful)
Recursive (Score:2, Insightful)
Well that's a roundabout way to do it. (Score:4, Informative)
On the subject of teeth: Dental care is good enough lately that people don't lose enough teeth to make room in the jaw for the rear molars, the "wisdom" teeth that come in later. It seems obvious to me, that we could tell in the early teens whether an individual's wisdom teeth will be in the way, and then simply prevent their growth with a squirt of botox. It would eliminate their costly and painful removal later.
Odd... (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought somebody else was working on a way to stimulate the existing tooth buds in the jaw (you have extras) but I can't find a reference.
Getting new teeth (Score:3, Interesting)
At first I wished that the teeth could be replaced with new ones, but then I realized something. The originals lasted 10-12 years before succumbing to decay, and the filled teeth lasted another 12 years. The crowns are made of porcelain-coated steel. They look great, are impervious to decay, and will probably last for the rest of my life. Why would I want to replace them with the troublesome things that were there before?
why? (Score:3, Informative)
and the tooth probably failed because it died (or is dying) which means that the whole tooth is at risk.
eric
Finally a solid business plan... (Score:4, Funny)
2. Set up office in Arkansas.
3. PROFIT!
*any* organ (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember that in the beginning we are just a lump of stem cell goo.. and everything we have was grown from them..
NOOOOOO! (Score:3, Interesting)
There is nothing more annoying for me than to be constantly reminded to brush and floss and visit the wallet-raping dentist twice a year. Heck, make them snap-on so I can take them out, toss them in a polishing machine for 30 seconds and be good for the day.
But don't go reinventing what's been broke since the dawn of time.
Not Bloody Likely (Score:5, Insightful)
The hurdles here are the same as hurdles for growing ANY tissue from stem cells. You don't just turn stem cells loose and tell them to become teeth. There is a hugely complex interaction of intra- and inter-cellular communication that goes on that tells a given cell whether to become part of the pulp, whether to start secreting enamel matrix, becoming an odontoblast, etc. If this were just five years off, we'd only be five years off from growing *hands*, etc.
Even if we could grow *a* tooth, we would have to grow the *right* tooth, especially in the "esthetic zone". How do we make sure that it *looks* like a central incisor with 11mm of enamel showing above the gingiva? How do we make the color right? Do we just grow something that is sort of tooth-like and put a crown on it automatically? Do we grow it in vitro and implant it in a surgical site? Do we grow it in situ? If so, how do we maintain the delicate balance of cellular influences in a mouth where someone ostensibly couldn't even keep their natural teeth in order?
I think that this is waaaaaay off in the distance. Their five year estimate is pie-in-the-sky pulled-out-of-their-ass.
In addition
Re:Not Bloody Likely (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe what you meant to say was "I hope I don't see this stuff coming into anyone's mouth for many years to come."
As a dentist, you're required to be opposed to the advancement of technology. What other branch of medicine has remained in the dark ages so successfully? Your primary tools are a pointy stick and various drills.
For fun, let's compare your work with mine. I'm a computer engineer. I work for a company that builds
Oh, God... (Score:5, Funny)
I may just stop using email completely... :-\
more important than teeth (Score:3, Interesting)
If you don't think spinal disks are important enough either, then you are probably correct, but are growing teeth from stem cells as important as the other things we can be doing will stem cells?
NHL (Score:3, Funny)
(joke, but it should be real..)
This is *SO* awesome. (Score:3, Informative)
I've researched having implants done, it's quite expensive, and also destructive to your mouth, the process requires filing/drilling of the bone in your mouth in order to insert titanium seats that will then be built-on and capped with false teeth. As someone who's been to the dentist a lot, this prospect is not the most desirable.
BUT, Since I've heard of the work being done with stem-cells, I've always wondered why they've not tried teeth! What's inspiring about this process is:
- It's your OWN stem cells. Your Source-Code. No rejection.
- It's 100% natural, The teeth will continue to behave like real teeth and will wear and change shape along with the rest in your mouth.
- No more fooling with gooey-glop to keep your teeth in.
- No longer afraid to smile "too big" for fear someone might notice that the some of the teeth in your grill don't quite match.
- No fear of flying teeth when you laugh.
- Not having to pull out your teeth when you through the metaldetector at the airport. (they got these metal wires in there)
- Not having to excuse yourself from a restaraunt dinner table because some piece of herb is stuck between the roof of your mouth and your partial.
- being able to taste the full-range of food flavors.
- No more headaches (literally) caused by ill-fitting mouth-gear.
I would gladly volunteer for this. The promise of positive results is just too great.A bit of teeth trivia (Score:3, Interesting)
-psy
Re:why not just.... (Score:2)