Using Wisdom Teeth To Make Stem Cells 82
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."
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Could you maybe have told me this _before_ I had them yanked?
Re:Great! (Score:4, Funny)
Why would he want an army of cellphones? /duck
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It was mistakenly called a parade, but a northwestern U.S. clown group just hosted a circus event with the beastly new phone that bites. This cell stemmed from one that was long in the tooth.
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Re:Great! (Score:4, Funny)
Your genetic datas was probably already overly corrupted from coke and coffee.
Coffee, maybe. The coke just gets snorted though, it never even touches my teeth.
Coke and coffee. How I love my Colombian exports! :)
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Yeah, I just had mine taken out last week. Now I'm wondering if the dentist still has them and can I get them back?
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Oh, and I DID ask for that tooth back. It's in my bathroom now haha.
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I didn't want to part with it, I liked to have ALL my teeth. I guess now I appreciate those molars even more!
Oh, and I DID ask for that tooth back. It's in my bathroom now haha.
So you do still have all your teeth? :)
Hmmm, maybe I should start keeping my hair before I start balding...
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When I was in my 40s, my two lower wisdom teeth were removed. One of the wisdom teeth was causing a very slight problem with keeping my gum clean alongside the next tooth.
Both my dentist and the maxiofacial surgeon said they hope they never have to try to remove the upper two, because it would take dynamite to remove either of them. If I rem
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Mine grew up fine, I actually liked having an extra set of chewing teeth. That one
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i think they survived because the surrounding teeth would either be lost by the time they show up (thanks to no dental hygiene), or the person was already dead from other issues (iirc, the 60+ age of today is not one a human would have expected before the discovery of medicine).
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You're probably still covered until you run out of teeth. Remember to brush and floss!
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You're probably still covered until you run out of teeth. Remember to brush and floss!
Why? Now we can just grow new ones!
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I can just see it now, rogue dentists abducting people to steal their teeth.
Pretty twisted, might make a good Futurama episode. (Perhaps Benders bolts, or nuts could be a target too)
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Did you have them pulled before September 17th 2010? Because expecting your dentist to follow research that isn't in his field, hasn't been published yet, and likely wasn't even started by the time you had yours out, that's probably unrealistic.
Anyway, wisdom teeth probably aren't the only source of pluripotent stem cells. Work in mouse has shown that their whisker bulge carries neural crest stem cells, trials are underway to see if these cells can fix damaged spinal cords.
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I never had wisdom teeth so I guess I am out of luck, too. Funny thing is that I never had any wisdom either, so go figure.
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Hah! I'll bet you never had any-
Aw crap!
And baby teeth (Score:2)
They too have stem cells. I told me niece's mom to save her baby teeth, but of course she didn't listen and threw them in the trash. (sigh). She also claims she didn't know the sun would cause her skin to freckle & wrinkle and wish someone had warned her (which I did; as did many many government PSAs). I wonder why it is some people don't listen?
Anyway if you have kids save their teeth.
Re:And baby teeth (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And baby teeth (Score:4, Informative)
some biology 101 for you, the pulp of those teeth are dead without living tissue in them. The roots are dissolved by the body and the tissues inside die.
Re:And baby teeth (Score:4, Funny)
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Embryo stem cell ban solution:
1) Grow babies
2) Take their teeth
3) Profit!
Just wisdom teeth? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just wisdom teeth? (Score:5, Funny)
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From TFA, it sounds as though any tooth will do, but you probably don't want to suck all the pulp out of the teeth that are still in your mouth. Wisdom teeth are usually taken out anyway, which is what makes them a convenient option.
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If it's what it needs to grow me back a new heart, lung, kidney, liver or leg when I need one, I'd gladly give a tooth or two for it. And technically, if that works, maybe they can grow the tooth back afterward...
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As a matter of fact, i would gladly walk around with a set of false teeth if it meant that i could use the one's i've got to get a few functioning organs.
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There was an article here about a year ago. It mentioned that very thing. They believe they will be able to cause you to grow specific teeth. The time frame mentioned was around the 10 year mark. It also required a Wisdom tooth as a basis.
Re:Just wisdom teeth? (Score:4, Funny)
Due to replication errors there is a possibility the new tooth may grow back EVIL!
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A mini-tooth is better than no tooth at all.
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Could I get some from my penis and/or testicles? I don't use them anyway.
You have more than one tooth. (Score:5, Interesting)
At least, most people do. The root pulp cells being converted to stem cells are not unique to the wisdom teeth. I presume they are also present in other teeth; it's just that the third molars are usually extracted anyway (though some people do retain them, provided there's enough space in the dentition for them). If we're talking about choosing to treat a life-threatening disease versus keeping a tooth, I would think most people would choose the former--of course, we aren't quite at the point where such procedures are beyond the research stage (thanks to the religious nutcases).
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Haven't you heard? Stem cells == Dead Babies. And don't bother trying to convince them otherwise - they know better!
Wait, does this mean that... pulling wisdom teeth out == Dead Babies? And I did it completely voluntarily, so I'm a murderer! Aargh.
Oh well, better go make some more babies to compensate.
Re:You have more than one tooth. (Score:4, Insightful)
One could argue that adult stem cell research has been spurred because of restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. But that view fails to recognize that in order to obtain adult stem cells, one has to go through more involved processes just to get the cells in a potentially useful state--in fact, that is what makes the approach discussed in TFA interesting (that one has a better chance of getting such cells from the root pulp in teeth, than say, skin cells).
Thus, restrictions on embryonic stem cells have seriously slowed down research into how we can use stem cells (of any kind) to treat disease, because not only do scientists have to figure out how to get adult stem cells to do what they want, they also have to GET TO THEM. We would know more about all kinds of stem cells if public funding existed for embryonic stem cell research. Instead, researchers have to expend extra effort getting adult cells to revert to a pluripotent state, instead of being able to concentrate on understanding how such cells could be used to treat disease. We are nowhere near solving the problems of how to get these cells to do what we would like them to do, because it is so insanely fucking difficult to get them to begin with, and if you think that this has nothing to do with the religious nutcases, you are oblivious to reality.
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The embryonic stem cells ban didn't apply to the rest of the world, and still no therapies have derived from embryonic stem cells (wan't there a site devoted to reporting in these?). There are, however, a couple of therapies derived from adult stem cells, both from the US and from other countries.
Restricting science is short-sighted and all, but I never really cared for research coming from embryonic stem cells (it just seemed the WRONG approach altogether, when any resulting therapy would need to have the
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It's difficult to be pro-science without some religious nutjobs thinking that you're talking anti-religion. That's just the way it is. As for the Bush stem cell policy, it's akin to the Broken Window Fallacy, [wikipedia.org] which has been proven not to help the economy. In other words, perhaps it could be argued that we're further along with adul
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but it could also be argued that people have died who otherwise would not have needed to, if we had continued research uninterrupted.
Well, all except for that little bothersome detail about no actual therapies being derived yet from embryonic stem cells in the dozens of other countries completely unaffected by the ban. Because there is no other place doing science outside of GOD BLESS MURRICA!
I'll take a therapy that doesn't require immunosuppressants, tyvm.
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Oh how I love a good anonymous response.
1) Oh cool, I didn't know about that one. Except it's not a therapy yet. I read it, and am at least mildly curious as to what they mean by "phase 1 clinical trials" (since, if you know anything about those, are done on HEALTHY people to establish safe dosages, pharmacokinetics, that sort of thing... In therapies that are not ethically acceptable to use healthy people for them, they'll jump directly to phase 2 trials). I'm sure it's just a journalistic error, though, s
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The retards who started the argument were doing it for religious reasons, it serves them right if the associated publicity makes people realise how stupid religion is in general.
The more the Pope drones on about how condoms cause AIDS, the quicker he is bringing about the enlightened overthrow of these Dark Ages throwbacks.
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Let's see:
- Name calling
- "they did it first"
- Feeling superior to the vast majority of the population
- Misquoting
Did I miss anything? Oh right. You failed to point out a single counter-argument AND you turned this even further into the debate that it is not. You couldn't be more of a cliché for your typical radical "ultra-scientific" person. And I quote it, of course, because true scientists and rational-thinking people would facepalm at seeing such an ignorant, pointless, empty, off-topic and hateful
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How do you turn a stem cell into the tissue you're trying to make? The answer to that question turns out to be incredibly complicated, which is why we can't yet take ANY stem cell, adult, embryonic, or induced pluripotent, and make it into a vat of neurons of a specific type. We are finding out how it happens naturally by studying embryos, and we are finding out how we can do it by studying stem cells in culture.
Studying ESC is essential to this process. If you have a stem cell culture and are trying to
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I have never heard of any group, religious nut cases or otherwise, protesting adult stem cell research. Quite the opposite. One of the principal arguments made by those who oppose embryonic stem cell research is that the same or better treatments can be accomplished through adult stem cell research. In fact, virtually all therapeutic procedures that have so far been developed from stem cells have involved the use of adult stem cells.
I support embryonic stem cell research. But unless and until someone c
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Being able to do the same thing with adult stem cells is not the issue. The issue is that we had to spend (are currently spending) a considerable amount of time figuring out how to reproduce pluripotent stem cells from adult tissue - and then figuring out what to do with them. Consider an alternate history of scientific advancement in which embryonic stem cells were used without as much restriction, treatments created to use them to combat major human illnesses, etc. At the same time (or even afterward, if
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It is very difficult to use embryonic stem cells in direct treatments. At best, it could only have half of your genetic makeup, and likely still suffer rejection issues. The point the parents however was making is that embryonic stem cells take almost 1/10th or some other extremely lower amount of time to "proof of concept" a treatment that can then move onto a real treatment wher
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So I don't really see the whoopy factor in this.
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it's just that the third molars are usually extracted anyway (though some people do retain them, provided there's enough space in the dentition for them).
True that — it all depends on what available space there is. My teeth are so big, I had my lower wisdom teeth and all four second molars extracted as a kid. I only have 24 teeth! :B
On a side note, my upper wisdom teeth haven't grown yet and it's been practically ten years since I had my lower wisdom teeth extracted... Now, that's weird.
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I don't know of any religion that is against ADULT stem cells or cord blood cells. The ones that are harvested from embryos, yes, but adult and cord cells are no problem.
You don't get that the argument is terminating a life to harvest embryonic cells, I take it?
Wow! (Score:2)
Is it safe? (Score:2)
WooHoo! I've still got two! (Score:2)
So what do I do with them? Stem cells do what again? Something I need?
Will they reset my vent fibula, and regrow cartilage, so my ankle doesn't click and hurt?
Will they regrow hair on my head, so I can have it cut again instead of shaved?
Will they help me lose weight?
Will they heal my shoulder tendonitis?
Will they cure my vision [surveyophthalmol.com] problems?
I know, I know, stem cells are expected to cure cancer, autism, diabetes, whatever. Common stuff, not so much. That's the appeal. But the research is dragging on.
Howev
Stop finding uses for useless body parts (Score:1, Funny)
Dear Slashdot,
Please stop finding uses for these useless body parts. The day after my appendix was removed I see that they finally discovered a use for the human appendix, and yesterday I get my wisdom teeth pulled.
No more body parts removed for me.
Thanks.
Since I don't have my wisdom teeth any more... (Score:2)
In a related news... (Score:5, Informative)
They used wisdom teeth that had been frozen for three years after being removed from a 10-year-old girl.
* dentata (Score:1)
It's not like anything [google.com] could go wrong [tvtropes.org] with this.
A little late.. (Score:1)
Great stuff (Score:2)
It's nice to see people using wisdom to bite into the stem cell issue.
Wait a minute... (Score:1)
What you're telling us is that there's a source for stem cells that does not require the destruction of a human embryo?
This administration will not find that acceptable.
LK
quit wasting time (Score:2)
and break out with the human embryos being discarded from fertility labs already
lets quit pansying around and use the best tool for the job
Most people? (Score:1)
Old News! (Score:1)
In August 2008, it was revealed that scientists in Japan were able to successfully harvest stem cells from wisdom teeth.[19] This discovery is of great clinical importance, as wisdom tooth extractions are a relatively common type of oral surgery. Patients who have their wisdom teeth removed are currently able to opt to have stem cells from those teeth isolated and saved, in case they should ever need the cells."