BBC News - Researchers grow teeth from gum cells
In the latest study they took human epithelial cells from the gums of human patients, grew more of them in the lab and mixed them with mesenchyme cells from mice.
The mesenchyme cells were cultured to be "inducing" - they instruct the epithelial cells to start growing into a tooth.
Transplanting the cell combination into mice, researchers were able to grow hybrid human/mouse teeth that had viable roots, they reported in the Journal of Dental Research.
Not that it seems anyone will be at risk of getting a mouse tooth by accident:
Study leader Prof Paul Sharpe said mesenchyme cells could be found in the pulp of wisdom teeth, among other sources, but the difficulty had been in getting hold of enough of them.
"This advance here is we have identified a cell population you could envisage using in the clinic. We are now working to try and identify a simple way of getting mesenchyme."
He added: "The next major challenge is to identify a way to culture adult human mesenchymal cells to be tooth-inducing, as at the moment we can only make embryonic mesenchymal cells do this."
And here's another question: how will lab grown teeth know what sort of tooth to turn into? It would be a bit embarrassing having a molar grow where an incisor should be.
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