Dental Insurance Kids, Growing multiple new teeth from single tooth germ
A team of scientists in Japan that is working on growing multiple, fully-functional teeth and implanting them in mice. Tooth development in humans is a complex process that depends on what’s called the “tooth germ.” This is a mass of cells formed early in life from the ectoderm and ectomesenchyme in the jaw. In the early stages, these germs are relatively simple in structure and the team from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology and Tokyo Medical and Dental University led by Takashi Tsuji hit on the idea of taking one germ, dividing it, and then growing new, multiple teeth in the laboratory.