Scientists report growing new teeth for mice, in place






Researchers say they have engineered the growth of fully functional replacement teeth in mice, with the growth occurring in the tooths proper place.


Technology exists to develop some tissues in the lab that can be transplanted into animals. But Etsuko Ikeda of Tokyo-based Organ Technologies Inc. and Tokyo University of Science in Chiba, Japan, and colleagues explored ways to grow an organ in place.


The work could serve as a prelude to other organ replacements using a similar technique, they proposed.


The researchers developed a bioengineered tooth germ, a seed-like tissue containing the cells and genetic instructions necessary to form a tooth. They then transplanted the germ into the jawbones of mice.


The germs regularly grew into replacement teeth, the investigators said. Tracking gene activity in the transplanted germ with a fluorescent glowing protein, the researchers found that genes normally activated in tooth development were also active during the engineered replacements growth.


The engineered tooths hardness was comparable to that of natural teeth, and nerve fibers could grow throughout and respond to pain stimulation, they also found. The results are reported in this weeks early online edition of the research journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


"We propose this technology as a model for future organ replacement therapies," the researchers wrote.

Courtesy PNAS and World Science staff, Aug. 3, 2009

Cool! Maybe Iggy could get them to plant brain cell germs on his neck.

Even cooking is to above the average skills of posters and readers here.

"Exactly! And so are the posts by the cement process engineer that can't tell French from Latin. "

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)