Don't Buy Stock in Denture-Making Companies: Adult Stem Cells Grow New Teeth
Wisdom teeth are a rich source of stem cells, and apparently they can be used to grow teeth on demand. From the story:
As long as there are hockey players, there will be niche markets for false teeth. But the real news about the future of dentures is that there isn't much of one.If this pans out, denture-making companies may go the way of the buggy whip industry.
Toothlessness has declined 60 percent in the United States since 1960. Baby boomers will be the first generation in human history typically to go to their graves with most of their teeth.
And now comes tooth regeneration: growing teeth in adults, on demand, to replace missing ones. Soon. It turns out wisdom teeth are prolific sources of adult stem cells needed to grow new teeth for you. From scratch. In your adult life, as you need them. In the near future. According to the National Institutes of Health.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:23 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
What took so long? After growing human teeth in chickens, rats, pigs, and every other animal imaginable for what seems like forever, it's about time someone tried growing human teeth in humans for a change.
Makes me sad that I buried the two I had pulled out of my head in the back yard. (The bottom two got impacted.) Oh well, I still have the top two. Come to think of it, I have all my teeth yet, so no worries, but it's pretty cool that we're making this kind of progress.
NullH -
Your comment reminded me of an article I read about a mouse with a human ear on its back. From what I recall, a kid lost his ear, so scientists "grew" him a new one and it was grafted onto the back of a mouse or a rat until it was ready to be attached to the boy's head. The rat survived and lived a normal life afterwards, until a natural death. I found out about it after I stumbled upon weird pictures of sculptures done by an artist depicting the ear-bearing rodent. Very strange, but we can do some pretty amazing stuff these days.
Very interesting! But I had my wisdom teeth pulled as a teenager!
That poor rodent. What a monstrosity -- an ear growing out of the back of a member of another species. The rodent didn't do anything to deserve that, and we are not entitled to do such things just because we want to. ("Science requires it" is analogous to "the heart wants what it wants".) Which is creepier, having a human ear growing out of one's back, for a rat, or having an ear, as a human, that was grown on the back of a rat? If they had to grow it out of something, it should have been done on the boy's own body; that would be more tasteful and fitting.
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